We can be who we are
by Garrae
Summary: "How ironic that it should have been his books that had rescued her, when it had been he whose words had damned her in the first place." AU s1. Please read a/n at the beginning.
1. Chapter 1

_**This S1 story will, in part, deal with late stage alcoholism and bereavement. If that will upset you or be triggering, please, please stop here. It is firmly AU, and the age gap between Beckett and Castle has been shrunk, as you will shortly notice. **_

**_Thanks are due up front to DrDit92, for trying to teach me to speak American, and to DX2012, Mobazan27 _****_and _****_Kato Molotov, and many others too numerous to mention, for all our chats, which have cleared my thinking._**

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**Chapter 1: Go back to high school**

High school had been hell. And here she is, unexpectedly, about to take in for questioning the main reason it had been so. She smiles to herself with no mirth at all, and the honed steel-sharp edge of a cutthroat razor.

He calls himself Rick Castle now, not Rick – or Ricky – Rodgers. He's a stunning success: multi-million seller, multi-millionaire. If she had known Richard Castle were Rick Rodgers, she'd have burnt her own eyes out with a hot poker, rather than read the books. She never pays attention to the photo or the bio or the PR. She's only interested in the stories on the page. Reading saved her: first from high-school hell and then, after that, from a different circle of the pit: acted as a brake on her downward spiral and then gave her a purpose.

How ironic that it should have been _his_ books that had rescued her, when it had been he whose words had damned her in the first place.

She looks around the room, full of celebrities and glitterati and bimbos and bimbettes of both genders: eye candy in profusion. Heaven forbid that anyone here should have to look at anyone who's short, or fat, or ugly. She knows exactly where he is. She'd always known exactly where he is. She had to, in order to avoid him and his clique of glossy hangers-on: arrogant seniors who set the tone and ran the show and decided who was in and who out. Too-cool-for-school asshole Rick Rodgers. She was very definitely _out_. Right from moment one.

But now _she's_ in charge of the playground.

"Mr Castle?" she says sharply, stalking up to him; shield, handcuffs and gun on full display, threat and authority in every lineament and in her cold, dispassionate gaze. She's unimpressed by him, and shows it. "Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD. We need to ask you a few questions about a murder that took place earlier tonight." He clearly hasn't recognised her, or clocked the name. Neither surprises her.

She's equally unsurprised by his extensive and heated attempts at flirtation. It's perfectly obvious that he wants her to go on a date with him, and then to fall into his bed. She won't. Every other girl or woman he's ever met would no doubt be, or has been, delighted so to do. She won't. She hadn't.

She sends him home with no ceremony and frigid politesse, and notes his look of hurt confusion with the same dispassion with which she'd met his initial flare of scorching desire. She has work to do. She sets her team to ripping into his alibi and the answers to her interrogation. He'd been the same spoilt, arrogant jackass he'd always been. Leopards don't change their spots. At least, not without some world-shattering disaster, such as had happened to her.

She keeps working. Now, she's a confident professional, at the top of her game and the top of the stats. She leads the pack and leads the way: commendations and respect accompany her. Youngest ever woman to make detective. Graduated top from the Academy. Top of the class at NYU. Scholarship there and to Stanford, before NYU. And now she is also a stunningly beautiful woman, who uses her looks like she uses her service weapon, and to the same deadly effect.

Unhappy, bespectacled, chubby little Katie, accelerated scholarship kid and class geek, is long gone: buried in a quiet grave in a New York cemetery with the mother who'd loved her no matter what; been proud of her no matter what, and for whom and, later, in whose memory she had never taken the easy, ultimate way out. At times, it had been very tempting. But her mother was always there for her, and though nothing was ever said, her mother's calm voice was somehow always a little nearer and a little more present on the worst days, keeping her grounded, keeping her safe.

She'd gone a little crazy, after that day, finished the semester at Stanford and run wild: drink, boys, clubs: anything to forget. And then she'd watched her father, showing her the destination that that road would soon lead her to, and remembered her mother, and stepped back from the brink: gone to grief counselling and got – she thought – straightened out; lost her troubles in voracious reading of everything she could get her hands on.

She transferred to NYU, and lived like a nun for the first semester, fought for her father and failed; added his watch on her wrist to her mother's ring on its chain round her neck; met a sparky medical student who beat her up till she had a poor something of a life again. They're still best friends, and now they're colleagues, she and Lanie Parrish, her social saviour in a sassy shell.

And here she is now, fifteen years on from that high school freshman, and if she lets it the bite of sharp-toothed memory will gnaw into her until she's reduced to the spectacled scholarship student with no friends and a 4.0 GPA: straight A average.

She knows, and bitterly wishes it were otherwise, that he isn't her killer. But he can fret and worry and stew until she's ruled him out properly and tells him that he's clear. This is _her_ game now, and she makes the rules. (She doesn't let herself admit that the same old spark is already there, dancing in her veins, just as it had been.)

She keeps working: work the gravedigger interring all her memories, work the salve for her weeping wounds. How she had wept, then. Eventually, too late to eat, too tired to care, she goes home to her solitary, peaceful apartment, bought and maintained with the proceeds of the very sizeable life insurance policy, enough to keep her wholly comfortably without any need for her cop's salary. She'd rather be in a walk-up bedsit in the Bronx, and have her mother there. In any case she barely spends: clothes, from small shops or discount designer outlets, and shoes and books her only indulgences. She doesn't travel now, except the short distance to work, isn't interested in films or theatre or concerts. If she wants those, she watches or listens at home.

Those ten-year old memories are bad enough for anyone. Those of high school merely add a gloss, as if she had any room for more pain. All her pain is channelled into fighting for the victim and for justice: for the underdog who'll never have a chance to be other. She'd become other, forged in pain.

It had all begun in high school hell.

She'd won a scholarship, been accelerated, and for a few brief moments as she walked in, thirteen going on fourteen and wide-eyed, hopelessly naive about cliques and groups and Queen Bees and wannabes; a little overweight and with glasses; short, no growth spurt yet taking her to full height; dressed a little off-beat, no logos; she'd felt a sense of happiness.

She hadn't noticed the gang of seniors near the entrance, till one of them, small and thin and dark, rat-faced, had yelled, "Hey, fresher!" and she'd, stupidly, turned to look.

"C'mere, fresher. What's your name?" She shouldn't have gone, she shouldn't have answered, but she hadn't known about the game. It was called _Pick on a freshman_, and they were its Dan Marinos, its Joe DiMaggios. That had been her first mistake. Not her last, though. That had come later.

They'd surrounded her, a group of eighteen year old boys and girls: sharp faces, sharp cruel rodent eyes. To a casual look, they were sun-kissed and, rat-face notwithstanding, otherwise attractive. Up close and rather too personal for comfort, they were intimidating. (She'd learned a lot, and later used it, from them. How to frighten with only a look. How to strike fear into the already-nervous heart. And so on.) And then it had begun. Her clothes, her figure (or lack thereof), her height, her books, her posture, her purse; all scorned and derided. She'd had no way out. A few minutes in, another boy had joined the circle: big, broad, blue-eyed – how fast small details could be etched into your memory (she'd honed that gift, too, later) – and the others had swarmed around him.

"We caught a fresher, Ricky. Told you we would."

"Told you not to," the boy said. "We don't need freshers. But since she's here, what's her name?" He hadn't really looked at her: one quick dismissive glance.

"Says she's Katie." She still remembers, pinpoint sharp, the glossy blonde's undertone of contempt at the childish diminutive. "Katie Beckett."

The boy named Ricky grinned, amused, eighteen and handsome and arrogant and clearly in charge of the mob. "Beckett? Sure it's not Speckett, with the glasses?" It was a throwaway quip, not even malicious. But his gang had seized on it and by the end of the first week she'd been _Speckett_, or Katie Speckett-Four-Eyes, to everyone in school.

That was it, really. Rick Rodgers never said another word to her for two terms, but his cohorts made her life a misery and he didn't know or didn't care. He could have stopped it all cold, but he hadn't. But then at the beginning of the summer term the dogs were called off, and almost every time she turned around there was handsome, arrogant Rick. She hid: stayed in home room; cowered in the restrooms, locked herself in a stall for the whole of lunch break. With nothing to do but read and study, she was easily the top of all her classes. It had occurred to her to fail: deliberately to flunk out, lose the scholarship and leave the school; but she couldn't disappoint her parents like that and later she wouldn't give the seniors the satisfaction of knowing that their casual cruelty had any effect.

(That same shell served her well, later. Got her through the funeral, NYU, the Academy; got her through her uniform days and her first months in Homicide; and then got her through the retirement of her training officer and later the collapse of her relationship with a Fed. Got her through her father's alcoholism, too, and kept her out of addiction of a different sort, when she came close.)

It didn't matter where she hid or how hard she tried to avoid him; bitterly and fearfully aware of where he was; somehow he found her, or waited for her, and imposed his overwhelming presence and personality on the air around her. (She has her own presence and personality now: she's the centre of command in every situation. No-one and nothing scares her any more.)

She ignored him, but he talked anyway, incessantly. And it seemed to keep the rest of his gang away. In a strange, unwelcome manner, it was, at least, protection, in the same way as a remora fish is protected by a shark. She had no idea, and cared less, why he was doing that, but the absence of bullying was a relief. (Now she doesn't need or want anyone's protection. She does the protecting, and she can chop a lowlife or a high society bigwig off at the knees with equal facility: leave them shattered and whimpering in her wake.)

Two weeks further in, he commented unfavourably on her book, and finally roused her to fury; extracted a response from her. They'd argued literature through the whole of lunch break, loudly and angrily on her part, with a small smile on his; and at the end of the day he'd been waiting to walk her home and the argument or discussion or debate had continued. He'd matched her razor-blade mind: the only one she'd met in school who could. (She'd never understood how he'd repeated a year.)

Two weeks after that, he'd confidently reached for her hand, though it had taken her another week to let him take it, still sure that this was all too good to be true, but addicted already to the cut and thrust of intellectual battle. She gave his senior status no respect at all: he had to win that word by word.

The first time he tried to put an arm around her, tuck her into his side, she'd fled. She'd hidden in study hall for a week, till his spies had told him what she'd done and she'd emerged one day to find him waiting there with a rueful grin and apologetic eyes, saying he was sorry for pushing her but he couldn't resist and could he walk her home still? She'd been convinced of his sincerity, and for the first time reached out her own hand to him. (She doesn't believe in anyone's sincerity, now. The people she meets outside her team are never truthful.) That time, when he took it, was the first time in her life that she felt the sharp pang and grip of sheer physical desire. She'd thought, from his expression, that he had felt it too. (Even with Will, she'd never had that same immediate shock: they'd grown into it together, and then later grown out of it again.)

So she'd accepted his arm around her and his presence and gradually permitted herself to believe that confident, popular, star-of-the-show Rick Rodgers genuinely wanted to spend time with her. They argued about everything: she let him in, further and further; listened to his thoughts and worries about college and how he'd pay for it: his family – only a mother, no-one else – not being wealthy. He was working for scholarships, on one now: she could empathise with that. He wanted to stay in New York, though, he said: he'd done enough travelling when younger: that travelling life had left him a year older than the rest of his friends.

And then, one day, they took the long way home, through the park; his arm in its now familiar place around her: she still small before her growth spurt came upon her; he walked them down a quiet, deserted wooded path and turned and drew her into his arms and bent down and _kissed_ her: little slightly-chubby bespectacled Katie. That same arc as she had felt when she took his hand blazed into blue-hot life: he crushed her in and took her mouth as if he had the right and though she'd never been properly kissed before somehow, some way, her mouth and tongue knew exactly what to do.

They kept it strictly to kissing, by unvoiced and desperate agreement. They never went on a date. She never invited him to her home, nor did he invite her to his. But all the time, she thought, the connection between them, minds and bodies both, was strengthening. (She's never felt it, or sought it, again.)

And then, uncertainly, astonishingly stuttering and unsure, Rick Rodgers, who could have asked and got anyone at all that he wanted, asked her to be his date to prom; and followed it up by kissing her in a way that she'd never known before or since: utterly possessive and all-encompassing, and murmured in her ear that he loved her. She'd been too shocked to say it back, but she'd accepted the invitation to prom, happier than she'd ever been. She'd cuddled it close, warm in her chest, and not even told her mother.

She'd been so happy.

One Saturday she went alone to look for a prom dress, still hugging to herself the delightful secret, not yet ready to share it with anyone. She'd seen a few dresses, and then, tired and sore-footed from her wandering, slipped into a coffee bar for respite, quietly pondering in a dim booth at the back. (Even then, only fourteen, she'd already been addicted to coffee.)

She had registered the noise and bustle of a group, but, lost in her happy dreams of pretty dresses and handsome Rick, not of whom the group was composed. She came to shocked attention when she recognised the unpleasant, familiar tones of her erstwhile tormentors.

"I'd never have believed he could do it."

"Ricky really pulled it off, didn't he?"

"Fifty dollars I've lost on this already. And another fifty if he gets to second base. A hundred more if that fat little fresher puts out."

"Course she will. She'll never turn him down – who would? He's got her wrapped round his little finger."

"Yeah, and soon she'll be wrapped round his dick too. Though how he's managed to keep a straight face all this time" –

"Or how he'd keep it up" – there's nasty sniggering.

"Still, how dumb must she be? Thought she was supposed to be clever. How could she think Ricky would ever be interested in her? He must be as good at acting as his mom."

"Better. She's never won an Oscar. He'll deserve one, if he gets her to prom and she puts out."

"When she turns up at prom I guess I'll have to pay up."

She'd stopped listening, then, frozen in place, shrinking into the booth and waiting till they had gone, until the memory of malice was the only remnant of their presence. Then she had left, without ever realising that in all those cutting words the one voice that hadn't been there was Rick's. It had only been a cruel, nasty game. It had never been real, and everything she'd thought was sincere had been a lie.

She spent the remainder of the afternoon in the horror section of a bookshop, chasing down a memory: and then re-reading _Carrie_. When she was done, she had a plan. She wouldn't open herself up to public humiliation by attending. The first tongues of fire flared in her belly, overwhelming her pain with furious, frigid anger, and for the first, but not the last, time she turned it to her purpose. She could act. Oh, _how_ she would act.

And she did.

She made it through the time before prom without arousing suspicion: described the dress she had liked best; lost herself in the blazing debate on books and films and music and plays. But she claimed parental worry and concern about the time she was taking over their dawdling homeward route, and while his arm still curled around her, kisses were hurried brief pecks. When he didn't seem to notice or care about her lack of response, all her knowledge was confirmed.

The last day before prom, his patience had snapped and he'd pushed her up against a tree and kissed her with that same utterly possessive passion, pressed tight against her and held her close in, whispered soft words of love. She'd known it for the lie it was, and her resolve had set like concrete around steel girders. She had buried herself in total control, thought of her plan and made no betraying noise or movement of disgust. (That same total control has got her through interrogations with the worst of lowlife scum, suggesting the vilest depravities of which they can conceive. She's never turned a hair.)

"I'll collect you at seven, tomorrow. I've got you a corsage. I can't wait to see your dress." He had paused, there. "I can't wait to see you." She knew why.

"See you then. I'm looking forward to seeing you so much I can hardly believe it." She hadn't even lied. (She'd learned, in those few days, to use truth to mislead, and learned it well. Later, it served her vocation.) She was as gushing as she could be, exactly as she should be.

Her parents were out for the evening: early dinner and the theatre with friends. At fourteen, she could be left to her own devices for an evening, and after all it wasn't like she would have been throwing wild parties. That trust suited her excellently well, that night. They were gone long before the front door sounded. She had opened it and stood, foursquare in the doorway, blocking it. He had been all dressed up in a black tuxedo: white buttonhole, white corsage in his hand, astonishingly handsome. As beautiful as a cobra, and just as poisonous. She had told him that the dress she'd liked best was crimson red, and he had smiled and said that in that case he'd stick to black and white, because nothing could have been worse than clashing reds.

He had looked at her, dumbfounded, and for the first time in all those days since she'd overheard the conversation she felt vicious pleasure.

"Did you forget the time, Katie? You're not ready." He had been confused, but nothing more. She had stood there in torn, scruffy jeans and an old t-shirt, hair untidy, no make-up.

"I'm not going." She thought, afterwards, that he had thought then that it was just cold feet.

"But… your dress, and I got your corsage… and" – she had cut him off. The first, but again not the last, time that her cold, clear voice had cut through a situation to its core.

"You can stop pretending now. Stop lying to me. I heard what this was all about. How much have you won so far, _Ricky_? How much more were you going to win by getting past first base? Well, this isn't _fuck-a-geek-week_, so I hope you haven't spent your winnings. I'm not going. You can go to prom on your own, and explain to your _friends_ that I overheard you all talking, and that's why you've got no date for prom. You can keep your game. I'm not playing. Oh – and by the way, it's Kate. Not Katie."

She shut the door in his face and refused to listen to him ringing the bell continuously. She allowed all her grief to run out: cried herself to sleep and woke in the morning with her heart encased in granite.

She hadn't seen him again from that day to this: her pain covered by the far greater agony of her mother's murder and her father's disintegration and the lack of any solution to either. By then she'd grown up and slimmed down; discovered her joy in exercise and changed her glasses for contacts; acquired a spiky, edgy haircut that suited her spiky, edgy personality.

She's never allowed herself to be hurt like that again, in all her relationships.

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_This is a longer story, and is completed. Work permitting, posting will be one chapter daily, though timing may not be consistent. I am always grateful for constructive reviews, and all logged-in reviews are answered._

_Chapter titles are from songs. Happy to say which, if asked._


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: The last time I saw her**

Castle, though hardly impressed by the way the evening had proceeded, is bouncing along on the twin floats of his absolutely unimpeachable alibi – the Mayor, the Commissioner and at least one judge had all been at the book launch party, several hundred people had seen him there, and he even has written proof of his presence, albeit on the chests of pretty women – and a very strong desire to get to know the presiding detective better. A _lot_ better. He just wishes that the odd, pervasive notion that he _knows_ her, that he's heard that voice before, would resolve itself into where and when they had met. That would give him an excuse to contact her, though he doesn't really need one.

Still, she had read all his books, that much was clear, so most likely he'd met her at a signing. And now he's home, so he will be discussing it all with his mother, whether he likes it or not. His daughter can be kept out of it. Even a mature 11-year old is not required for this conversation. He shoos Alexis off to bed, his mother's guest out the door, and pours himself and his mother a glass of wine. It takes her less than ten seconds – that would be the first slug of wine hitting the back of her throat – to begin an interrogation which, though conducted in considerably friendlier fashion than that of Detective Beckett, (he _knows_ that name. Why does he know that name?) is nevertheless equally detailed.

"Why were you arrested, Richard?"

"I wasn't_ arrested_, Mother. I was asked to come in for questioning." Martha harrumphs, and takes another drink.

"When you're carted off in handcuffs, darling, that's arrested."

"You'd know, Mother. Anyway, I wasn't in handcuffs and I wasn't arrested."

"Whatever. So, who was she? She was _very_ attractive, and you looked like a stunned hog when you turned round to see her."

"That was apparently a Detective Beckett." He frowns, and scrunches his face in thought. "I'm sure I've met her before, but I can't place her at all."

Martha looks at him. "What's her full name? Beckett doesn't sound very common."

"Kate. Kate Beckett." Martha chokes and splutters on her mouthful of wine. "What's wrong, Mother?"

"You _really_ don't remember, darling?" she squawks.

"No, but you clearly do. God knows how, since you never remember anything about what I do as long as I remember to pay the bills."

"Well, I could hardly forget this. Though I can't imagine it's the same girl."

"Mother, just tell me," Castle says exasperatedly. "I'm not in the mood for guessing games. If you know why the name's familiar, or where I met her, say so."

"Katie Beckett was the girl who stood you up for senior prom," Martha says, and a hot flood of remembered humiliation breaks over Castle's stunned head. Martha is still speaking. "But it can't be her, because you said that girl was short and chubby and wore glasses, and I never understood what you were doing with her anyway when she was four, five years younger than you."

"She was only that much younger because I had to duplicate a year because we moved around so much and she got accelerated." Castle says with absent irritation.

"I came home and you were practically passed out in your room with an empty bottle of bourbon but your drunken rambling..."

Castle has stopped listening. He stands up without a word to Martha, walks into his study and shuts the door with a sharp click behind him. He is abruptly certain that it is indeed the same Katie Beckett who had reduced him to flinders without allowing him a single word of explanation. He can still see her, now he lets himself, blocking the doorway and blazing with the same ferocious, cold fire he had seen tonight.

No wonder he hadn't recognised her, though he's amazed he didn't recognise the voice. Little Katie Beckett sure has grown up _fine_. But he'd known her as little Katie Beckett, small and soft: not this hard, ferociously focused and scorchingly hot woman. He sits back and lets the memories take him.

He'd had his coterie of hangers-on, his pack. Always ready with a smart quip, a little teasing, a lot of humour. They'd gone up through high school together, become seniors together. He'd been big, handsome and consequently popular, despite his scholarship-kid status and the year that he'd duplicated or missed starting or something like that in their travelling, peripatetic life, but he hadn't dropped his earliest friends, even when he'd wandered up and found them hazing some split-new baby-faced freshman, who'd looked utterly terrified. He'd made a casual enquiry as to the fresher's name, and then, so used to making smart remarks that he had neither stopped to think nor stopped his mouth opening, had flippantly coined the nickname _Speckett._ It had been round the school in an instant. Where he had led, everyone else had followed. He'd never meant that to happen. He'd never meant to be cruel, or hurt her.

Still, he hadn't paid any further attention then. He was a senior, he had college entrance and funding to worry about, and he certainly hadn't noticed her trailing round the school, as quiet and unhappy and invisible as a ghost.

He also certainly hadn't known that his so-called friends had still been hazing her. Bullying her. If he had, he might have dissuaded them. After all, everyone wanted to be his friend, so it would have been relatively easy. If only he'd known it early enough for that to be a viable option. When he did find out, accidentally, the only way he'd seen to stop them was to convince them that he reckoned he could make her like him, and tell them to lay off to give him a chance. He should have known that was a poor plan.

He had never expected his friends to start betting on it, or that – he'd thought that comment was a bad-taste _joke_, for Christ's sake – that they'd bet amongst themselves that he would get her to put out. At first she hadn't been his type, at all, too short, glasses, not pencil slim, and then, when he'd fallen in love with her brain and couldn't care less about her looks, he'd been all too conscious that she was _fourteen_. Underage sex had been the furthest thing from his mind when he'd begun his campaign of protection. (Sex is not the furthest thing from his mind now. Katie Beckett has turned into the hottest woman he's ever seen in his life.)

She had been a far harder nut to crack than he'd ever envisaged. It had taken him a fortnight to find her, to seek out and stake out her hiding places; another two weeks to make her riled enough to talk. He had been impressed, even then, by her resistance to his popularity and charm: most girls would have – had, did, and still do – fallen at his feet. He supposes, from the vantage point of maturity, and not a few rejections that he had suffered, that she was, quite simply, scared that this had been some new form of malice. It hadn't been that. It hadn't ever been that.

The first time he'd taken her hand the shock had crackled up his arm and singed his veins as it went. He'd been thankful for loose slacks. She hadn't noticed. By then he was already hopelessly, terminally, addicted to her steel-trap mind and sword-sharp intelligence. He wanted her mind, but taking her hand had been the first inkling that he might one day want her less-than-prepossessing body too. Not that he had thought of it like that, then. He didn't care about her looks, she was simply Katie, who could, despite the five years' difference between them, out-think him half the time, and whose small hand felt entirely right buried within his much larger one. Enclosed in him.

He'd wanted to know if she'd feel equally right enclosed in an – _his_ – encircling arm in fairly short order, once he'd started to be allowed to hold her hand. She'd been small and soft and cuddly, but the first time he'd tried it she had fled, and it had taken a full week to coax her back. Perhaps she'd unconsciously sensed his want, even then, even when he'd never have acted on it. When she had – finally – made the first move one day and reached for his hand, for the first and only time, he'd felt the same sense of triumph that some latter-day naturalist would have in enticing a shy animal to his touch. When she'd taken it the connection had ripped right through him. He'd never felt that same flame again. Nearly, but not quite.

She had felt so right within his arm. The awkwardness of the then-substantial height difference between his almost-six foot two and her – what? Five foot three, or four? – hadn't bothered him at all. (She'd looked _much_ taller, tonight, and whipcord slim; fiercely honed. He's seen blades that carry less deadly import. And of course, no glasses. He'd said, earlier, _do you know you have gorgeous eyes_? He'd thought she was going to hit him. Now he knows why.) He had thought that she was safe with him, protected beside him.

He'd never meant to kiss her, then. She was too young and too naïve and nothing like his previous girlfriends; he didn't want to lose her friendship and her astonishing, illuminating mind. But yet he did: pulled her close and kissed her and never wanted it to end. For all her untutored innocence, she'd flared into life against him.

It had been amazing.

He'd completely forgotten that he'd told his friends that it was a game: he was barely spending time with them anyway, because he was putting all his effort into college entry, winning the scholarships he'd need to fund it, and spending any spare time on his Katie. His motives for taking her to prom were, it had been fair to say, mixed – he'd wanted her with him, and didn't want to take anyone else, but he'd also wanted to leave her in a better position socially than she had been all that year: and he was sure that if he took her with him she'd be able to be friends with anyone she wanted. When she'd said _yes_ everything was going right, and for the first time he'd kissed her with all the desperate passion and need that had been building within him for weeks; told her he loved her and meant it. (Later, forgetting her, he'd said and meant the same words to small, dark, cuddly Kyra, who he had loved too; to red-headed Meredith, with less meaning, to convince her to marry him and give their baby a proper home; to blonde Gina, though a contract would have been more fitting.)

He'd been nineteen, and he was ready for the world. He doesn't know, now, if it had simply been teen infatuation on both their parts, a flame that would have flared and flashed and finally died. Certainly, when he'd met Kyra, he'd fallen wholly in love again. He wonders, now, how much of that might have been because she was, then, so similar to Katie, clever and small and soft and he could clasp her in and protect her. But then she'd walked away as well. Less cruelly, but equally as permanently.

Something had changed. He had thought she was simply nervous – freshers just don't get to go to senior prom. She'd been slipping away from him: not willing to spend a moment more than necessary within his arm, not quite as receptive to his kiss. He'd thought it was nerves, and not commented. He wouldn't ever have pushed her, and anyway although kissing her opened up a whole new dimension it was her mind that he wanted most, and that seemed just the same. He'd never thought that she could conceal herself from him so effectively. He'd only lost his control once, the day before prom, and been ashamed of himself afterwards.

He'd made sure he looked his best, bought a corsage that was the best he could find: a small white rose at its centre – he'd thought she would appreciate the humour implicit in the removal of the thorns – cleaned his car and gone to get her, perfectly on time. In fact, early. He'd sat outside for ten minutes before he could legitimately collect her.

Except she hadn't been ready. No dress, no make-up, messy hair. And a look on her face that he'd never, ever seen before, on anyone. She'd looked at him with agony and contempt and a cold, hard fury that he hadn't understood, said she wasn't going, listened to him stammer – and then she'd cut him to shreds in a few harsh sentences and shut the door on his devastated face. She hadn't let him say a word, hadn't let him explain.

He'd never seen her again.

He'd seen his so-called _friends_, though. Oh yes. Once. To tell them exactly what he thought of them and, with his infuriated words, to reduce them to the same shreds he'd been left in. Even then, he could wield words like a weapon. It had taken him the first fifteen minutes of prom. He'd left them breathless and walked out, gone home, and downed as much of his mother's booze as he could choke down, looking for oblivion as hard and as fast as possible. It hadn't worked. When the hangover had gone, the vision of her face had stayed.

Eventually, the memory of that night had faded, though never quite died. He'd made sure he didn't think of her, and forgot, quite deliberately, the humiliation she'd wreaked on him. Sometimes, he'd remembered her, in unhappy dreams, but he'd buried her deep, become a success, and never let himself worry about it ever again.

And now, here she is. Same razor mind, same ferocious intelligence, but now incineratingly hot. (But he hadn't wanted hot, then: he could have had any number of hot girls. He'd wanted Katie.) If he touched her – and she'd been out of reach for every minute of this evening – would that same spark ignite again? It's clear she hates him, but hate and love are two sides of the same coin and if nothing else he wants to explain, because it's clear she hasn't forgotten and it's certain sure that she hasn't forgiven.

* * *

Anyway, somewhere in the memories, his own sharp mind has come up with a plan. Deaths based on his books? He can work with that. He'd been taken to the Twelfth Precinct for questioning. Well, he's sure that the Mayor is connected to the Captain of the Twelfth. And he is connected to the Mayor. And the thigh-bone's connected to the hip-bone, and oh dem dry bones. Or, more precisely, there will be no old dry bones of a dead relationship about it. He's going to do his level best to ensure that he is, once again, connected to Katie Beckett. He'll make sure that Katie knows the truth.

Except she isn't called that now. She's calling herself Kate. It had been her last words to him, fifteen years ago. _It's Kate. Not Katie_. And she'd shut the door.

Okay. He'd never have thought of her (not willingly, anyway) if he hadn't met her again, but since he has, it's time to make this right. And he'll get that mental connection back, first. It's where they had begun. It's where they'll begin again.

He sips the last of his Merlot and considers. He's been blocked for months, his mind sluggish and, latterly, uninspired. But seeing Katie – _Katie_, dammit, she was never Kate to him – tonight, suddenly he has an idea. A spark. Just like fifteen years ago, she's fired his mind. He lights up his storyboard, and begins, unsure whether he's sketching out a new character or an old one. He'll separate them later: for now, he's dissecting what he's seen.

Tall, fierce and focused, searingly hot and terrifyingly intelligent: but little Katie wasn't going to be a cop. Why is she a cop, when all her intent had been to follow her parents into law? No time to pursue that thought now, with inspiration whipping him on. The cold interrogation room, one-way mirror, bland, grimy walls; a plastic topped table and utilitarian chairs – and she in total command within those walls, leaning across the table with sheer contempt in her face and voice for his lines and flirtation. (If he'd realised then who she was… well, he wouldn't have tried that trick.)

Truly, she had been in total command from the first step towards him. She'd blazed in the launch party, casting everything and everyone else into shadow. It's a learned technique, to project personality and command in that way: alpha status unmistakably on coruscating show. He'd never have believed that that shy little girl would become this stalking predator, this dangerous weapon. And yet… he remembers, now he's let the floodgate open, that when she'd been interested she'd been ferociously focused, passionate and forceful, well capable of holding her own. She'd never let anyone intimidate her intellectually. So maybe it's not a surprise, after all. Maybe she just needed to grow into it.

Quite literally, she's grown into it. She's _tall_. She wasn't tall, before. She can't have stood more than an inch or so shorter than he, tonight, which implies (the math is immediate) that even if she'd had heels on (and from the assertive click of her walk across the floor, she had) she must be at least five-eight, five-nine. He wouldn't be bending to her now.

The bullpen. Faintly flickering fluorescent strip lights, not quite bright enough for the space; gloomy corners. No effective air-conditioning – it must be hell in the New York summer – full of testosterone and machismo. And yet he'd seen, even in the brief moments as he passed through inward and later outward, that even there she carried leadership like she carried her shield and gun, a natural part of her, in her natural habitat of the precinct. The aura of concentrated lethality had surrounded her even in that wholly masculine atmosphere.

He'd barely noticed her team, though. Two of them, an oddly mismatched pair, but with the same respect for her in their gaze and tone. They're not important, yet, subsidiary characters who can be drawn up later. For now, it's his new lead character that's trapped his mind. Or, perhaps, his old one. He's still not sure which.

So. Now, he has an idea, a plan, a new character for a new book. That should get, and keep, Gina off his back and out his bank accounts for some considerable time to come. He'll let her know this week. He doesn't need to hurry that. He doesn't need to explain, either. Two weeks, for the outline, a year to publication after that. Not too much of a gap at all: the first _Storm_ novels had been a little closer, when his inspirations had burned so brightly that he _had_ to write, no matter what, at the expense of everything except his daughter. Sleep had been in short supply, those times.

Sleep would be a good plan now, and in the morning he'll call Bob. Then he'll see what can be done, then he'll make it right. Because right now all he can think of is the potential for the little Katie he'd loved once upon a time to become his Katie once more. The first way he'd done it was to match her mind, challenge her intellectually. Well, he can do that again. He knows exactly how, in this moment.

In the morning, he'll begin.

* * *

_Thank you all, those who have read, followed, favourited and reviewed, for the response to chapter 1. I really, really appreciate it. _

_All logged in reviews will be answered. _


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: A whisper to a scream**

In the morning Beckett has brought in a pile of Richard Castle books. No matter how much the knowledge that the author is her nemesis pains her, solving the case is the only aim. And if that means reading each of the books again: well, the stories are good, and she doesn't need to think about the author. The boys razz her, of course, but she'd expected that. They'd razz her a lot more if they knew she'd been at school with him. Then again, they'd razz her more if they knew that she's read everything: every possible genre from schlock horror to slush romance, classics to Westerns. They don't need to know either. They aren't impressed by being made to read, but since the alternative will be finding a profiler and they like that less, they'll do it.

However much they josh and razz, their little team is solid. It's stable, like a three-legged stool. It really shouldn't be. She has nothing in common with Ryan who has nothing in common with Espo who in turn has nothing in common with her. But somehow they fit together and make the best damn murder-solving team in New York. They're top of the stats and top of the league: the hot geek, the sniper and the mama's boy.

They don't need anyone else, and thankfully it has never been suggested. Their Captain, while he occasionally looks sidelong at her, loves their clear-up rate and, since he'd stopped her falling down the rabbit-hole of her mother's case by sending her to mandatory therapy backed up by the threat of unpaid suspension – she could have managed the _unpaid_ part of that. It was the _suspension_ she couldn't have handled – hasn't interfered with them.

She's the apex of their triangle, the one in charge, through sheer force of personality. And here they are now, ripping through the case, making it happen, doing what the three of them do best together: solving the crime. Until she asks Espo if there's any lab results – no – or connection between the victims, and he says "Other than your boy there? No."

It takes her a second to realise that _there_ does not refer to the picture on the back cover of the book. Richard-asshole-Castle, arrogant jackass Ricky Rodgers re-invented as superstar, is standing in _her_ bullpen talking to _her _Captain and _oh hell_ Esposito's already started on the ragging. _Maybe he likes you_? Oh, _fuck_.

She takes a short break to the restroom. _Maybe he likes you_. No. She doesn't think so. He had never liked her. He'd simply lied. And anyway, he doesn't even remember her now, which suits her just _fine_. She's had far bigger things to worry about than high school traumas, plenty of perfectly acceptable relationships, even if she's single right now, and she's the alpha wolf, Kipling's Raksha. (Plenty of relationships. In some of them she even made it past the first date. In a couple, past the second.) He's probably come in to complain that she'd hurt his delicate feelings. She washes her hands, smooths her hair and prowls back into her territory.

"Detective Beckett." Montgomery summons her.

"Captain. Yes, sir?"

Seeing him leaning on the wall as if he has the right to be there, to be anywhere that he pleases, takes Beckett right back to that summer term: the first day he started showing up where ever she happened to be leaving. She brushes the memory off with an angry shrug of her shoulders and pastes on a brittle, edgy smile. She's not a freshman now, small and scared, she reminds herself. She's not that silly little girl who believed in happy endings. He doesn't know her now. (He never did.) Her smile regains its normal calm, sardonic edge.

"Mr Castle has offered to assist with the investigation." Montgomery looks as if he's won the lottery. She supposes that, in career and political terms, he has. This will look good on his resume: world-famous author Richard Castle wanting – asking him – to be allowed to help on a case. It's only because it's based on _his_ books. But no matter how hard she clings to that thought, it rings hollow inside her head. Send not to ask for whom the bell tolls, Kate, because it looks very like it tolls for thee. Her already subterranean opinion of him falls further. See a hot woman, get knocked back, and manufacture some spurious excuse to keep trying.

"Really." It's not a question. Her statement falls heavily between them, weighted with as much sarcasm as she dares. Montgomery flicks her a swift glance, half question, half warning. She supposes that this time Rick Rodgers-now-Castle's lust is perfectly honestly felt. These days, appreciative looks and offers are not in short supply. If he knew who she really was he wouldn't be nearly as keen. She'll hold that one in reserve, for when she really needs it.

"It's the least I can do for the city I love," he says smarmily. There's a very odd flash through his eyes when he says it, however, and for a heart-clenchingly terrifying moment she thinks he remembers. She pushes that away as a ridiculous idea, and ignores him.

"Considering the nature of the crime scenes" – _oh Christ noooo!_ – "I think it's a good idea," Montgomery drawls with satisfaction. Beckett just bets _he's_ satisfied. He gets the glory. She gets the ghastly ghoul of her long-dead past. No doubt Montgomery is seeing his smiling face, not on the cover of the Rolling Stone, but on the cover of 1PP's next motivational newsletter. She can see her face as the next mug-shot on Bedford Hills' inmate list. It might even be worth it.

"Sir, can I talk to you for a minute?" she says desperately. "In private?" She doesn't need this. Him. Anyone. Especially not him. Surely if she tells Montgomery it'll disrupt her team and the stats he'll listen. Won't he? He doesn't want to lose their clear-up results – his job depends on them. Castle (she thinks angrily that at least if she uses that name it'll provide a modicum of distancing) is regarding her with that same satisfied _I'll-get-my-own-way-see-if-I-don't_ shit-eating grin that he'd used way back when. She feels just as if she's an experimental specimen, and right now she would rather be vivisected without an anaesthetic than have this disaster visited upon her.

"Nope," says Montgomery with a cheery smile, and cuts her last faint hope of salvation off at the knees by retreating into his office. Coward.

Okay. She can do this. He doesn't know her, dammit, so she can forget the past and pretend she doesn't know him and treat him like the annoying celebrity he clearly is without any baggage coming into it at all. She is not that stupid fat naïve little fresher any more. This is her realm, this is her team, and no-one is going to unsettle her now.

"Ryan. Esposito." The snap in her voice jerks them to attention. "This is Mr Castle, upon whose books our killer is basing his crimes." They look nervous. When Beckett uses perfect grammar, something is normally very badly wrong. When something is very badly wrong, someone will suffer. The only question is who. Or possibly whom. How should they know? They look, moderately unimpressed and not afraid to show it, at Castle.

"Mr Castle. Meet Detective Esposito," she gestures, "and Detective Ryan." Formality buttresses her words and demeanour, protecting her from the problem beside her. She turns back to the boys. "Mr Castle wants to help." There isn't a single inflection in her voice that indicates either pleasure or displeasure. "Perhaps there's something with which he could assist you?"

Esposito smiles evilly at Beckett. She acquires an unpleasant sinking feeling. Esposito's nasty sense of humour – and his knowledge that she is single, everything he'd overheard from Interrogation yesterday, and his comment earlier, all add up to only one, horrible, outcome. "Beckett, he can't come out canvassing with us. He ain't insured. You wouldn't want him to get hurt" – _if only you knew, Espo. If only you knew_ – "and sue the city. He'll need to stay here." _You rat bastard, Espo. You'll be confined to Dumpsters and sewers for months_. "With you." _Espo, I am going to shoot you. You and your nasty, mischief-making tendencies. I know what you're playing at._ Esposito catches her glare, and smiles. "He can help with all his fan mail. Oughta be quicker that way."

"I can do that," Castle points out. His voice hasn't changed. Same drawling baritone, velvet-soft and treacle-dark. A good tone for lies.

"Your fan mail is in that room there." Her ground in manners, and Montgomery's likely wrath if she acts otherwise, get the better of her. "Want a drink?" There's another very odd flash of expression through his eyes. She only hopes it isn't, as she'd feared, recognition.

"Yes, please," he says amiably. She must have imagined it. She installs him in the conference room with the large box of fan mail and returns with two coffees from the precinct machine. It's vile, but it's hot and has caffeine. While getting it, she'd also retrieved some elements of common sense and realised that if he doesn't know who she is now, then if she doesn't betray herself he never will. So it's up to her to pull on control like a full-body disguise and never let on that she knows him: that she knows how his hand felt in hers, how his arm felt around her, how his lips felt on hers, how his body felt pressed against her. And never let on that she knows how betrayal felt.

* * *

Castle had found it surprisingly easy to gain access to the Twelfth. Politics, and how to play it, is clearly as important in the NYPD as in any other walk of life. Montgomery seems to think that his presence might be an advantage. Katie had looked absolutely infuriated, for around half a second. Then she'd locked it all down, though the edge of focused violence on every clear, cold word had told him exactly what she thought of him. He'd have bet on her wanting to land a punch on her Captain, too; who had, come to think of it, retreated pretty quickly with a rather peculiar look on his face.

Anyway, if she wants to pretend she doesn't know who he used to be, he can pretend too. For now. He doesn't want to play that game for very long: just long enough to delay the inevitable explosion. But then, they'd begun in furious argument, though it had only been over a book. Maybe for this restart, that's another possible strategy. Not yet, though. Not just yet.

But he simply cannot stop looking at the woman Katie Beckett has become.

She turns to the fan mail, and begins to read. He's sneaking glances at her after every letter. She remembers how he used to read so much faster than she. Seems he still can. The staring gets old very quickly, and her temper, never particularly patient, shortens. It doesn't take long for her irritation and tension to snap.

"What?"

"Nothing. No, it's just the way your brow furrows when you're thinking... It's cute. I mean, not if you're playing poker. Then it'd be deadly, but otherwise..." He's still pretending. Because if he stops pretending now he'll close those blinds and lock the door and have a discussion that simply _does not_ belong in this room. It belongs in a very different room. One with nobody else within fifty miles. Or earshot, whichever comes sooner.

"Can I ask you a question?" Beckett says, carefully controlling her desire to scream at him.

"Shoot." She would love to. Unfortunately that's not an invitation to raise her Glock and put two into his head.

"Why are you here? You don't care about the victims, so you aren't here for justice. You don't care that the guy's aping your books, so you aren't here 'cause you're outraged. So what is it, _Rick_? You here to annoy me?" She knows he's here to annoy her, because he thinks she's just another pretty woman to seduce and then leave. Leopards don't change their spots. Rick Rodgers, change of name or not, doesn't change his game.

"I'm here for the story." He is. It's just that it's not only the story she'll think it is.

"The story." Disbelief drips from her lips. He remembers those lips under his, soft and giving and yielding and open: teenage kisses and summer love. He remembers those lips white and tight and pinched: expelling bitter words and hate.

"Why those people? Why those murders?" Which is, to be fair, interesting. But not as interesting as the woman across from him.

"Sometimes, there is no story. Sometimes the guy is just a psychopath." Or a liar. Or both. Like the man across from her.

"There's always a story. Always a chain of events which makes everything make sense. Take you for example. Under normal circumstances, you should not be here. Most smart, good-looking women become lawyers, not cops. And, yet, here you are. Why?" It's a question to which he really, really wants an answer. Because, he remembers, she wanted to be the first female Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. So how is she a homicide detective in an East Side precinct?

But there's a hurt in her eyes that hadn't been there even on that heart-breaking night long before, and she'd always been keen on justice and the bad guys going down for their crimes, and here she is taking them down rather than sending them down. It all comes together in his head: her rock hard covering, her job, her expression, her focus. He knows the bulk of it now. He doesn't need to let on he knows who she is. Not yet. Let her pretend she doesn't know him for a little longer.

"I don't know, Rick. You're the novelist. You tell me." He doesn't know who she is. He doesn't know her story. She can get through this. The day is almost done and she can get through this.

Time to start the game, thinks Castle. "Well, you're not Bridge and Tunnel - no trace of the boroughs when you talk, so that means Manhattan. That means money. You went to college. Probably a pretty good one. You had options. Yeah, you had lots of options. Better options. More socially acceptable options. And you still chose this. That tells me something happened. Not to you, you're wounded, but you're not that wounded. It was someone you cared about. It was someone you loved. And you probably could have lived with that, but the person responsible was never caught. And that, Detective Beckett, is why you're here." Now, let's see what that brings. Just maybe he'll draw her out with that, though her closed-off face isn't giving him a whole lot of hope.

"Cute trick. But don't think you know me." _Oh, Katie, Katie._ He knows her. He's always known her. But he's not letting her get away with that tone to him. Not when he knows she recognised him the moment she stalked into his launch party. There had been that single microsecond pause and flash of shock. She hadn't known who he was, and yet she'd clearly read every one of his books.

"The point is, there's always a story, you just have to find it." Time to start the dance. "What happened to you, _Katie_?"

"Do I know you?" she says, coldly. "My name is Kate. And in the precinct I'm called Beckett. _Detective_ Beckett, to you."

"You recognised me the moment you saw me, _Katie_. Don't pretend you didn't."

"You're Richard Castle. You're famous. Of course I recognised you. Your photo is on the back of every one of your books." She can, and will, stonewall with the best of them.

"You're _Katie Beckett_ and you were _my_ girlfriend until you stood me up on prom night."

"Please. You're delusional. If I'd dated someone like you, someone who became a best-selling author and multi-millionaire, I'd be selling my high school story to _Hello_! magazine and retiring on the proceeds." She turns back to the pile of fan-mail, picks up another letter, carries on reading, looking for a clue, ignoring the elephant in the room. He'd always used to pick up on her evasions, but she's a much better poker player now than she had been then.

"I think I just found it." She's staring at a lead. Finally. Something that will get her out of here. Something to solve this case.

"Found what?" How is she denying reality? She's lying. He knows she's lying. She knows he knows she's lying. But all of a sudden the whole situation has completely slipped out of his control because she's not paying him any attention at all and her whole focus is on the piece of paper in her hand. It's astonishing. She'd been tense all over and angry with him and then she'd snapped back to the case and forgotten anything to do with him entirely.

"The story."

And suddenly there are things to do and leads to follow and all her thoughts and actions are on the case and she really doesn't notice or care whether Castle is there or not, because it is simply _not relevant_ to the rest of the day.

When she stops and steps back and acquires another cup of revolting but caffeine-saturated liquid, she realises that all she has to do to keep herself sane is bury herself in the cases. Any cases. Because, while she's doing that, there are no inconvenient memories of times when she might have been happy or times when she wasn't or times when either way her mother was still there to celebrate or commiserate depending on her mood.

Right now, however, her mood is best described as _bad_. The lab is overloaded and won't run the prints lifted off her letter and get her a lead for a week. _A week_, and her victim's corpse is rotting in the morgue while she waits for data on the best – the only – lead they've got. She's fulminating by Esposito and Ryan and ignoring everything and everyone - specifically, the memory of humiliation and days when she had her mother – around her.

Castle hears the note of frustration rising in Katie's – no. He's _going_ to get this on a better footing. And he can start by respecting her choice of name. _Beckett_. Everyone around her calls her that. Everyone uses surnames, occasionally shortened. He should, too. He has to hear and feel and see and then internalise the bullpen for his story, too, and he can't do that if he doesn't fall into the cadence and rhythm and speech patterns: the banter and underlying respect and associations and hierarchy of its occupants. So think _Beckett_, Rick. Because this is quite emphatically _not_ little soft cuddly Katie, and every minute he thinks it is, will be another moment wasted.

As if there hadn't been enough of those already.

* * *

_Thank you all. I appreciate all your comments._


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Won't be fooled again**

Ka – _Beckett's_ – frustration is rapidly encroaching on irritation, or possibly fury. Castle's a little irritated by the delay too, but the detectives don't seem to have any other answer but _wait_. He doesn't much like waiting for what he wants. He also notices, and more, remembers, that K - _Beckett_ – is not at all keen on waiting either.

She never had waited for him. If he wasn't there, she simply went on. She hadn't waited for an explanation, either. Condemned him on the facts she had, and looked no further. She must do now. His earlier conversation with Montgomery had been illuminating. Star detective, hotshot crime solver. Montgomery had been very blunt: the trio are the outstanding team in the precinct and probably in NYC and it had all gelled around Detective Beckett. Castle was not to do _anything _that might screw that up, or he'd be out the door with Montgomery's shoe tread branded on his ass. Menacing sincerity had pervaded every word. So clearly she deals with the whole of the evidence, now, not only the obvious.

Okay, so they – a collective they, the team, not just Katie, but clearly led by Katie – Beckett, _Beckett_, for God's sake – solve cases better. A tendril of desire to be helpful writhes into his head, fertilised by his own desire to know this story, to develop his new story, _and_ to make Katie – _Beckett_, dammit – see that he can be useful. Well. Just to see him would be an improvement. It's clear, only on two days' renewed acquaintance, that solving the case is her driving force. And, very fortunately, he thinks he can help. Of course, he doesn't put it like that. He makes a flippant, thoroughly annoying comment. He is not going to parade around like a love-sick puppy begging for scraps and treats and forgiveness. That's not who he is, or who he was, or who he wants to be. He simply wants to show her the facts: that she made a mistake back then; that they should try again.

He'd used to be able to blindside her by taking one line of argument and then switching at the last possible moment – he'll use that now. He'll show her a flirtatious celebrity, and then he'll switch it when he gets her alone. And he will. Soon. He's forgotten that it only worked, at best, one time in two, and she's all grown up now and has a career for which success depends on her never being caught off guard or deceived. He's just been told she's astonishingly successful, and he hasn't understood what that means at all.

"A week?" he says, disbelievingly.

"Welcome to reality, superstar." He's heard friendlier tones from a state executioner. (Research. He'd nearly thrown up. The nightmares had lasted for weeks.)

"Well, I never did much like reality." He certainly doesn't like this version of reality, and he has every intention of changing it to one which he does like. One in which he tells Katie Beckett the truth she wouldn't listen to fifteen years ago, and then he can have her right back where she belongs: by his side. (He'd never led. She'd never followed. Side by side, hand in hand.) He's met her again only two short days ago in the most peculiar of circumstances and suddenly it's as if he's nineteen again: as addicted to her as he was then.

He makes a call, gets what he wants – results: prints will be available in an hour – and waits for the expected enthusiasm. Instead, she looks like she wants to shoot him (this is becoming unpleasantly familiar and he's only seen her for two days) and then lays into him for jumping the queue. What is her _problem_? He's got her the results that she wanted, that she'd have been fretting about not having for a week, and all she's doing is _complaining_ that he's done it. What's the point of having the ability to improve matters and solve problems if you don't use it?

He's annoyed, and he shows it.

"Oh, I think somebody feels threatened."

"I'm not threatened." Not by _Ricky_ pulling his celebrity status, anyway. She is beginning to acquire the extremely unpleasant feeling that he isn't just going to go away. Well, she won't be fooled again. If she were still little bespectacled Katie he wouldn't have looked at her twice. He certainly wouldn't be involved in this case. Since he didn't want her when she didn't look like this, she doesn't want him now.

"No, no, I get it; I can call the mayor and you can't." He can do something she can't, that will benefit her. Just like at school, when he could protect her when she couldn't do it for herself. She certainly doesn't need protection now. (She hadn't asked for protection. She had never asked him for anything.) But he can get her a faster answer.

"We have procedure. Protocol." The case is important to her, but so are all the other cases important to other people. She needs to be able to rely on other detectives, not just her team, and steamrollering over their priorities is not likely to incline any of them to help her out when she needs a favour. Then again, steamrollering other people regardless of their feelings was a speciality of Rick Rodgers's. Seems that hasn't changed, either.

"Yeah, and you always come to a complete stop at a red light, and you never fudge your taxes. Tell me something: you ever have any fun? You know, let your hair down, drop your top, a little cops-gone-wild?" She'd never seemed to have any fun at school, either. Except when she was arguing with him. Or when he was kissing her. Presumably she'd had a better time after he'd left. After all, she'd been with the most popular boy in school. Even if she hadn't gone to prom, surely she must have managed some social kudos from that?

It never occurs to him that the last act of his so-called friends might have been to trash both of them.

"You do know I'm wearing a gun?" She looks as if she really means to use it on him, too.

"Oooh." It takes everything she has, every ounce of control, not to slap him silly and throw him out bodily. Not that she could manage it, any more than she could have done fifteen years ago. He's still much bigger and much heavier than she and even if she's trained in defensive drills and sparring she is well aware (and regrets more with each passing minute) that a good big guy will always beat a good little guy. She's not _that_ good, and she simply doesn't have the physical mass to make up for it. She returns her focus to the case and ignores anything else.

There's been another murder. The third murder. This is looking more and more like a serial killer, not a single death plus a distraction. Beckett is ordered to take Castle with her, which does not improve her mood in any way. She's even less happy when he starts meddling in the latest body. Lanie should know better than to be impressed by a pretty face and a good mind. Haven't they seen enough of those, just before they go down for Murder One? And he's showing off. Again.

She's just starting on reaming him out for not obeying orders when he starts to change the subject and talk about the case and at least that's vaguely useful and bearable and relevant and doesn't go near any difficult areas. And _thank God_ her phone has rung at last and the lab has got a match on the prints and they can finish this thrice-damned case and she will never ever have to see Rick Rodgers ever ever _ever_ again. At least he seems to have bought her story of never having met him.

They've got the guy. It's horribly sad: mentally disturbed, fixated on Castle and his books, trophies from the victims: and all the evidence points in one direction: straight to him. Even better, since the case is now closed, guy put away, there is absolutely no reason for Rick Castle to show up again. As a consequence of that delightfully reassuring thought, Beckett is, for the first time in three days, thoroughly relaxed and pleased with the world. She even manages relative civility when Castle _does_, annoyingly, show up, and she finds him prowling round her desk, leafing through her files.

However, it looks like he was simply waiting for her to show up. He's even brought her a present, of sorts: an advance copy of his latest book. That's a little arrogant, to say the least: how does he even know she'd want to read his works? Still, he writes well, though the knowledge of who he really is does not add a good flavour to the story. She'd half expected a rerun of the argument that had begun over his fan mail, but it seems like he's really, truly, believed that she is not that Katie Beckett. (She isn't. That Katie Beckett died in an alley with her mother.) She's fooled him. He's swallowed her barefaced lies. Well, he's done that before too: she'd lied to him for longer, in more exigent circumstances, and she's much better at misdirection now. Her sigh of relief is heartfelt and utterly sincere.

Until he puts a hand on her and pecks her on the cheek. She can't stop the shiver. She desperately hopes that he hasn't noticed. But – he's leaving. Without ado. So she's got away with it.

She hadn't got away with it at all. Castle had most certainly noticed, but now he's playing a different game altogether. One he intends to win. It's called _Let's prove Beckett's got it wrong._ Because he's still intent on reminding her that he is as clever as she, and then going back to those first days when it was all about the intellectual battle. It's how he won her over originally, and it's where he intends to start again. _Right back where we started from_, in fact. He hums a few notes of the song as he exits the precinct, patting the papers in his pocket happily.

It suddenly occurs to Beckett that Rick Rodgers-now-Castle had only ever behaved like that when he thought he'd got one over on her. A dreadful suspicion sinks into her brain. Two seconds of checking the file confirms it. That _bastard_ has removed papers from the file and walked off with them.

Her temper fries its last shreds of control in an instant. She wants to shoot him. She wants to scream loudly and throw punches. She does none of these things. Instead, she takes the politically precautionary route of going to see Captain Montgomery to gain formal approval of her proposed actions. This is going to be done strictly by the book. There will be no question about its propriety and correctness.

Montgomery is also very unimpressed by Castle's actions, though he's not nearly as incandescently angry as Beckett clearly is.

"Sir, friend of the Mayor or not, he can't go removing evidence from our case files and taking it out the precinct." Montgomery nods, slowly. An odd thought is percolating gently through his brain, of which not one hint appears on his face.

"Go pick him up, Beckett. You're right. We can't have civilians misappropriating key pieces of our case files." He watches her satisfied swing as she leaves with a pair of burly uniformed cops, and goes back to the extremely interesting and amusing thoughts that are crossing his mind. He assembles his evidence and deductions, grinning evilly all the while.

First, having Castle around is a political and PR coup for the Twelfth. He likes that. It's good for the city, good for the NYPD and therefore good for him.

Second, Castle is very clearly into Detective Beckett, who is equally clearly _not_ into Castle. Montgomery likes a good soap opera as much as the next man, and this is shaping up to be the funniest soap in years. What had Esposito said? Ah yes. Better than Shark Week. He emits a small snigger. Looks like the irresistible force just shook hands with the immovable object.

Third, Beckett needs to get her head out of homicide occasionally, and Castle prowling the precinct and bothering the bullpen has already ensured that she's left (or fled) at a rather more reasonable and civilised hour than at any time in the previous six months. Her unofficial overtime has been creeping rapidly up ever since she broke up with her Fed, but it's ballooned recently.

Montgomery digresses from his present issue for a moment to spit, metaphorically. Boston? He wasn't having his best detective waltzing off to _Boston_, for God's sake. What use would she be there? The only crime in Boston is social solecism. Using the wrong set of cutlery. _Boston_? Not if he could help it. Fortunately it had all collapsed. Anyway, back to the main theme.

Four, Beckett not only wasn't into Castle, she'd taken an instant dislike to him: in fact, she'd displayed complete abhorrence. This is unusual. She normally shrugs off attempts at flirtation and cheap come-ons or crude suggestions without a quiver. She's had plenty of practice. This immediate anger is… well, odd. He'd almost have thought that they had a history, except that he's sure he'd have seen it on page six, and she could never have kept that secret from the bullpen. They know, and gossip, about everything.

Five, flirtatious or not, Castle can think. Moreover, he thinks differently from everyone else in Beckett's team. It's possible, Montgomery thinks, that he's as clever as Beckett, but in a very different way. Hmmm. Beckett's team get all the weird ones. Maybe what they need to be even better is someone who thinks outside the box. Maybe what they need is a little – mmm – competition. Beckett never rests on her laurels, and she doesn't let the other two do so either, but a little spur to the sides never hurt.

Okay. When Beckett hauls Castle in in cuffs, which probably won't take much longer, Montgomery is going to kick his ass for screwing around with the files when Beckett _can _hear it, and then very quietly suggest that if he feels like reappearing in a day or two looking a little penitent then Montgomery will allow him back.

He likes soap operas.

Some little while later Beckett reappears at his door and informs Montgomery, with an expression of vicious satisfaction, that Mr Castle is in Holding should the Captain wish to speak to him; and in the meantime how long should she give it before calling his family to bail him out? Oh – and she's recovered the papers.

* * *

When she'd gone after him, she'd gone first, without any real hope of success, to his apartment, a loft in a very expensive part of SoHo. Still, badges beat doormen, though she'd asked the uniforms to stay a little behind her when she knocked. Naturally, he hadn't been there. The door had been opened by an older redhead in an eye-wateringly bright outfit. It must be his mother. (She'd never met his mother. He'd never met her parents, either.) She regards Beckett coolly, at first, but on discovering her name and purpose becomes slightly less formal and directs her to the New York Public Library. Beckett decamps at considerable speed.

Behind her, Martha considers for a moment. From the late night clicking, Richard has clearly found his next inspiration – and it has just stalked off to arrest him. Again. She didn't look friendly at all. Well now. Richard's had it all a little too easy recently, and in addition Martha had always been sure that there was far more to that prom night debacle than he had ever admitted. Admitted once he'd sobered up, anyway.

She, Martha Rodgers, Grande Dame of off-Broadway, is certainly not inclined to fall on Katie Beckett's neck and shower her with enthusiasm. She'd left Richard appallingly hurt, after all. But. But Martha _is_ inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. Because Richard's drunken ramblings had been extremely interesting. The spoilt brats he'd unfortunately continued to hang around with and called friends had believed that Richard had been stringing Katie – such a ridiculous diminutive: what's wrong with Katherine? – along for a bet and somehow she had found out. If Katherine (that's better) had thought Richard was involved, then it was hardly surprising a young teen had reacted as she had. It was a pretty unusual relationship, anyway. She'd never met her, Richard had never talked about her until prom night, and it was only because he'd been out of his head drunk that she'd known anything about her. Hardly Richard's normal style, before or since.

But the tall, poised, beautiful and thoroughly hard-edged woman who has just left bears absolutely no resemblance to the child-girl Richard had drunkenly wept over as he described her. Surely he's mistaken?

* * *

Beckett and the burly uniforms find Castle perusing the purloined papers. It's intensely satisfying to place him under arrest: it's even better than hauling him in for questioning. She even manages to ignore his nasty comment that it's because he made her look bad and the salacious comment about bondage. (But it makes her remember how it felt when he first asked her to prom and kissed her hard and held her tightly and she _understood_ the dangerous attraction of big, broad male in control of events. All her partners since have been big.)

He tosses out a smart remark about Cabot being innocent, because the roses were wrong. She ostensibly ignores it. It keeps squirming around her head, however, and gnawing at her brain and adding to the sense of wrongness she's been feeling on and off ever since she arrested Cabot. She glares at her murder board. It would be so nice and so easy and so simple and so convenient. But the more she thinks it over, the more it feels all wrong.

* * *

In Holding, Castle is sitting unenthusiastically regarding the bare walls, the bars and the sensation of the cuffs which someone seems to have forgotten to remove. He's fairly certain that this may have been deliberate. It's not comfortable, and even his general happy interest in life, the universe and everything is somewhat dented. He knows he really shouldn't have pinched Beckett's papers – ha! He got it right that time. Must have been the shock of the handcuffs. He doesn't like service-issue handcuffs. Not on his own wrists. But he is _sure_ she's got the wrong man. The details aren't right, and Cabot's pathology should have driven him to ensure that every single tiny detail was precisely and perfectly correct.

She's got it wrong. He only hopes that his inflammatory statement will prick her pride enough for her to try to prove him wrong. She likes to be right, and she likes to win, and she had always taken new facts into account in their arguments.

Except that last time.

* * *

_Thank you to all readers, followers, favouriters and reviewers. I appreciate hearing all your thoughts._


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: I'm into something good**

After a time, Castle hears the slap of feet – not the clack of heels, so therefore not Beckett – on the corridor floor and Montgomery appears. He looks disapprovingly and rather disappointedly at Castle.

"What did you think you were doing, Mr Castle?" This is not encouraging.

"The story doesn't fit. The details were all wrong. You got the wrong guy."

"You think so?" Montgomery does not sound receptive.

"Yes."

Montgomery is intrigued: not least because for the last hour in the bullpen Beckett's been pacing and muttering and glaring and chewing on her lip and clearly has a thought she doesn't like wheeling in her head.

"Okay. Well, that's not my problem, Mr Castle. You are not a member of the NYPD. You are also not part of the team investigating this case. You had no right to touch, still less remove, crucial papers from, any case file without permission." Castle looks by turns guilty, apologetic and – how odd – focused. He doesn't say anything, though. Montgomery lets the moment stretch, till he's sure Castle has been reduced to a sense of his own iniquities.

"Of course," Montgomery says casually, "if you'd _asked_ me, I'd have given you permission to look at the files. In the precinct." Well now. That's fetched this Rick Castle. He's silenced him. Temporarily. And he's looking very, very interested.

"Why?" Castle eventually says.

"I like the way you think. We could use some left-field thinking on these sorts of cases." Montgomery grins like a starving lion spotting an antelope. "Detective Beckett's team picks up every way-out, weird case in the district. Think you can handle that?" Castle hears the distinct undertone of _are you man enough to handle her_ and translates it entirely accurately as having nothing to do with sex and everything to do with being able to handle being outthought by Beckett. _If only you knew, Captain Montgomery. I'm so used to that_. He swings his gaze back to Montgomery and looks him directly in the eye.

"Yes. I can cope."

"Good. So here's what we're going to do. We're going back to the bullpen. I am going to tell you clearly to stop interfering. You are going to apologise" – Castle makes an annoyed noise. "Yes, you are. You were wrong" – Castle nods once, mouth twisted – "and we'll let your family bail you out. Then you put your brain to working out what the story is, come tell me, and I'll make sure Beckett doesn't shoot you."

Montgomery releases Castle from Holding and the cuffs and does precisely what they had discussed.

* * *

After Castle is finally and indubitably gone, Beckett is still staring at the murder board, thinking furiously. The more she thinks, the less she likes Cabot for the killer. It's infuriating, but Castle might just be right. It doesn't _fit_. Killers don't go from barely-known targets to well-known targets back to barely-known targets. The victim is talking to her more and more loudly. She has to get this right. She owes it to the dead.

Kyle Cabot is not her killer. Back to first principles. Motive, means and opportunity. So who had a motive to kill Alison Tisdale apart from Cabot? Well-worn cop cynicism says – money or sex. She starts with the money. It's usually money, especially where Alison Tisdale, though living in very restrained style, is the daughter of one of the richest men around. _Cui bono_: who benefits? She starts searching. And the place to start is, of course, her father. That'll be tomorrow's first action. Far too late, she goes home.

At home, a dinner of the remains of last night's unfinished take-out and a soothing cup of coffee by her side, she picks up her new book. When she reads his scrawl under the dedication, she nearly throws it through her window. _To Katie Beckett: a fifteen-year old mystery I intend to solve. Rick Castle_. The air turns blue and sizzles around her. He hadn't bought her lies at all.

But he's gone. She'll never have to see him again. He can try as hard as he likes but she's got a job to do and the random nature of homicide means she'll never be where he is. This is not high school and there are an unlimited number of places she might need to be. It's just fine. He's only written it to annoy. He won't mean it. (He can't mean it.) She finishes her coffee and goes to bed.

* * *

Tisdale's building is large: a modern glass-and-steel construction like so many. Time to enter and pursue a new line of thought on this case. Her step is halted by the next problem, leaning cheerfully and arrogantly on the reception desk. _What the actual fuck?_ What is he doing here?

"Hi, I'm Rick Castle. I have an appointment to see Mr. Tisdale." You what now? An appointment to see Tisdale? What the _hell_? She had clearly heard Montgomery tell him not to interfere.

"Yes. Mr. Castle. He's expecting you." Time to intervene. This is going to be interesting… right before she rips his head off his shoulders and spits down his neck. Oh. She can't. She is _not_ going down for Murder One. She'll do it when there aren't any witnesses and she can dispose of the body without a trace. For now, she'll go with intimidation.

"Is he, now?" Castle's jump at her cold tones is intensely satisfying. He looks thoroughly guilty and embarrassed. So he should. This is absolutely unacceptable. And it reminds her unhappily and frighteningly of his original tactics in high school.

"This is not what it looks like...this... Okay, this is exactly what it looks like, but I can explain." No. He really cannot explain. Because he is not going to pull the same trick as he did back when on her ever again. Fifteen years hasn't improved either him or her now-dragged up heartbroken hatred for him in the slightest. (He'd made her think he loved her and it was all lies.)

She is not having a screaming row in the reception of a smart office building. She is not having a screaming row with Rick Rodgers – Castle – at all. She is going to pretend she's never met him before this week and treat him as her Captain would wish her to. She'll have him eviscerated later, when she sees Montgomery with her findings. So, little as she likes it, she might as well let him follow her. One interruption of the grieving father on this topic is quite enough.

"You comin'?" His look of complete dumbfoundment would be funny if she weren't so mad. She can feel him prowling at her shoulder, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. Her spine straightens to steely rigidity. She's in control of this. Her case, her world, her investigation. Whatever nonsense he's scribbled in the book, he doesn't belong here. He'll be gone, soon. She can manage till then. She locks down to the same cold, unfeeling, glaciated state that she perfected in the first week of sophomore year and focuses on Tisdale senior.

Her own questioning achieves nothing that she didn't already know. It's Castle who elicits the interesting fact that Tisdale senior is badly ill – maybe dying. And that puts money – Tisdale's money – at the top of the motive table. Which in turn puts Tisdale junior at the top of the suspect table. And, much to Beckett's relief, Castle's ability to think does not extend to taking the cynical view of a cop. Of course the alibi has been faked. It's only a question of proving how.

Castle is padding slightly behind Beckett for the purpose of thinking, unobserved and undissected. And, of course, to enjoy the view in front of him. He is a normally red-blooded male, after all. The four archangels would have put down their swords and trumpets to watch her walk. But that's not really what he needs or wants to think about, though underlying his thinking is an ever-growing conviction that what he really wants is Katie – Kate – Beckett back in his life. He's actually thinking about two things: one is how and when to correct Beckett's misconceptions about that long-ago prom night, and the second is how Tisdale junior could have faked the passport stamps. The second is far more productive than the first. His thoughts on the first issue are rather starting to centre around finding out if Beckett would still feel as _right_ against him as she used to. He rapidly relocates his brain to the second. Getting shot is not on today's to-do list.

Beckett's team, planted firmly in the precinct, are just as sarcastic – but not nearly as frozenly unfriendly – about Castle's inability to disbelieve Tisdale's alibi. Things improve dramatically when he – back to how it used to be, even-steven on the outthinking score-sheet – points out that with that much money sloshing round a second passport would be no problem and _everyone accepts it_ as a good suggestion. Just for a moment, even Beckett thinks it's a good suggestion and their minds are working in the same old harmony. Of course it doesn't last for more than a moment, but… it's a moment in which she isn't treating him like something really nasty she stepped in and can't wash off her shoe.

Warrant achieved, Castle just keeps right on following Beckett. She ignores him, right up till the point they arrive at Tisdale's apartment. She's really good at ignoring him. And then, much to his amazement and befuddlement, she says, "Castle, if you're going in you should be armed. My backup's in the glove compartment." He's so surprised he doesn't think that she's used an almost pleasant tone, which should have warned him something was up, and that he _knows_ that civilians without a carry permit certainly don't get to use a cop's backup piece. He goes hunting in the glove compartment and fails to notice Beckett taking out her cuffs as she moves towards him.

"I can't find it," he says plaintively. The reason becomes obvious immediately. It didn't exist. Beckett has grabbed, very ungently, his wrist and hauled it above his head in order to handcuff him to the grab handle above the car door. She smiles viciously.

"This time you're staying put." She's gone. Castle considers his position, and the still-sparkling feeling of the little needles that had run right up his arm and down his body when Beckett touched him. Well, he hadn't liked police cuffs yesterday, so he'd taken precautions. In his pocket is a universal key. It's highly irregular, but he'd felt it might be useful. He smiles just as nastily as Beckett had a moment ago. He won't be cuffed when she gets back. It would, of course, be much more helpful if he hadn't dropped the key. He's just retrieving it from the sidewalk with his toes when he spots Tisdale hauling ass down the fire escape and has to reveal something he would really rather not: that he's already programmed Beckett's number into his phone. Well, it was right there in front of him so he took it.

Castle realises in one horrible instant that the cops aren't going to make it round in time. There's only one thing to do to stop this becoming a disaster – and that's going after Tisdale himself. So he does. He recognises the utter stupidity of this right about the point that he ends up with a gun to his head, though it only takes him an instant to note that Tisdale hasn't taken the safety off. Yet. However, there are some advantages to this otherwise-unpleasant position. Start with the _major_ plus that Beckett, for the first time since she showed up in his life again, actually sounds worried about the potential for him dying. Well. If not worried, at least she isn't encouraging Tisdale to shoot him. Which he wouldn't have bet on being entirely out of the question.

Now, if he can simply keep Tisdale focused on his own misery, there will be an opportunity. Whether that's for Beckett to get a clean shot or for him to take Tisdale out doesn't really matter. He starts to tell the story, intentionally goading: his words designed to anger and salt all of Tisdale's invented wounds. It works: Tisdale takes his attention off Castle's hands and the gun and as soon as he does Castle takes his chance and floors him with an elbow. He can't resist drawing Beckett's attention to his brilliance, but she's more intent on the practical matter of handcuffs. First, at least.

When Tisdale's secured, Castle expects at least a little pleasantness. He doesn't expect Beckett, furiously angry, to shove him against the wall.

"What the hell were you thinking? You could've gotten yourself killed."

She's right there in front of him. He doesn't even think, simply pulls her hard against him. She pulls away immediately, too fast for him to take her mouth and show her that he doesn't believe any of her lies about not knowing him. But he'd seen the flash through her eyes and just for an instant she'd shuddered and she still feels perfectly right in his arms.

"Anyone would think you cared, Beckett." He's thoroughly smug, and a good three-quarters of it is because there is still something there. Oh yes. Shivers yesterday and shudders today: she's still reacting to his touch. To him. And there is still that same strange mental connection too.

"You're not getting shot on my watch. You're not worth losing the badge over. Besides, someone will do it for me sometime soon." She sounds satisfied by the thought as she turns away to the cruiser.

The trip back is silent. Beckett is wrapped in wordless, hostile reserve and several dozen layers of touch-me-not spikiness. She's quite deliberately projecting unfriendliness, because then she won't have to think about the flush of heat and memory that has washed through her. Just for a moment she'd looked fractionally upward into those same blue eyes and fifteen years dropped right away. But then they came slamming right back.

She deals with Tisdale's processing, watched all the while by the unwelcome presence of Nemesis. She's perfectly well aware of what is going on here. Rick Rodgers – Castle – is trying the same tactics that he had used the first time. God knows why he thinks she'll fall for his moves this time, when she is completely aware that he's only doing it because she's stunning and she won't have him. Still, this time it is _definitely _over.

"Guess this is it," she says coolly. Underlying it is some considerable relief that she won't have to remember anything. She can go back to her nice organised life with nice organised friends and nice organised relationships when she wants them. Which is not now.

"Well, it doesn't have to be. We could go to dinner. Debrief each other." _Not likely. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me._ She won't be fooled again.

"Why, Castle? So I can be another one of your conquests?" Left unsaid, but echoing very loudly in the air between them, is _Again_?

"Or I could be one of yours." As if, he thinks, he hadn't been already; as if he isn't now; as if the gap had never been.

"It was nice to meet you, Castle." It's equally clearly both a lie and a dismissal. It even makes it sound as if she is _still_ pretending she has never met him in her life before. He is simply not putting up with that. Oh no. He already knows how he's going to deal with that. She'll see. Oh yes.

"Too bad. It would've been great." It will be great. It will be everything it should have been.

"You have no idea," and he hears _and you've missed your chance to find out._ Oh no. She doesn't get out of this that easily. Especially not when she's showing him everything he isn't – yet – getting. She'd shivered against him and it wasn't from cold and there is _definitely_ still something there. Lots of something: body _and_ brain. She'll see. Ohhhh yes.

He wanders home, wrapped in self-satisfaction at his own cleverness, makes a single phone call and then turns to his keyboard until inspiration finally fades, well into the small hours.

* * *

Beckett finishes the paperwork and goes home, massively relieved that he's gone. This whole week has been a complete disaster. Nearly got the wrong guy, came across a part of her past she'd hoped never to encounter again, and couldn't get rid of it. Not to mention that if it hadn't been for him they might not have got the _right_ guy. She hates losing, and she hates being wrong more. And she cannot, simply _cannot_, understand how Rick Rodgers became Rick Castle, multimillionaire and notorious playboy, who still believes she's that stupid little girl with romantic dreams of the handsome hero, and seems to think that she'd want to know him despite what he did.

Despite the undeniable fact that their minds still match and there's still a spark. Well, sexual attraction is very different from liking. Lust is not love, and she's well in control of her emotions and body. Besides which, after she'd taken her revenge he'd fought back just as cruelly. Every kid in school had believed she'd put out at prom. That's why Ricky Rodgers hadn't shown up for more than fifteen minutes. He'd been screwing her in the back of his car. They'd been seen, apparently. (She never trusts uncorroborated eye-witness evidence.)

It was far too good a story for anyone to believe her denial. No alibi, either. So she retreated into books and study and developed a depth of reserve that kept everyone away and won a scholarship to Stanford. The three years of high school after Ricky Rodgers had fucked her life up had been hell. But it's all over now. It's all over now, baby blue.

Baby blue eyes. It had put her off Will, initially. She'd not dated anyone with blue eyes in years. But Will had been her type: big and broad, taller than she even in her favourite heels, and he'd been safe. Clever but not too clever; good in bed, if a little unadventurous; solid. Which had eventually turned into staid. Still, they'd parted on relatively pleasant terms, with no reproaches. It had been good, while it lasted. He just hadn't, ultimately, been what she wanted. So very nearly, but when it had come to the crunch she couldn't do it. It wouldn't have been fair.

Rather reluctantly, she admits that Will simply hadn't had the edge of danger she had wanted. She'd always had the far stronger personality, and in the end he'd always deferred slightly to her fiercer intelligence. She'd wanted an equal partner, and he couldn't give her that. She hasn't found one, at all, and not for want of looking, in or out of work. Even so, she has her team, and that functions perfectly.

Another charge to lay at Ricky Rodgers' door. She's not stupid, and she recognises that early imprinting for precisely what it was. Big men, broad men, edge of danger and hard intelligence: a match but never a superior. She's been looking for it ever since.

* * *

_Thank you all. The site failure yesterday meant that this chapter is being posted at the usual time today. I really appreciate all your thoughts._

_For the guest who asked if this would be like the show: no, not really - this will be going further AU pretty soon. It's set S1, so to the extent there are case references that's where they are from, but otherwise, there is a very different arc._


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Take it into town**

After two days of peace and quiet and paperwork, Beckett is comfortably content that her world is back in balance. She's arranged a night out with Lanie at the weekend – now only an hour or so away, and her calmness is completely reasserted. All is well with her world.

She's entirely unsuspicious when Montgomery summons her in.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Montgomery is wearing a very odd expression. It's a peculiar mixture of amusement, satisfaction, and intrigue. It suddenly puts her on full alert.

"Yeah. I just got a call from the mayor's office. Apparently, you have a fan."

"A fan, sir?" She can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Apparently it's not simply the oncoming train but the tunnelling equipment, overriding every obstacle in its path. She knows exactly what Montgomery's going to say next in a moment of blindingly horrible realisation. That unprintable rat bastard _swine_. He can't do this. Montgomery can't do this. This is so _unfair_. He can't _do_ this. She had thought he wouldn't be able to show up and follow her because she's always at random crime scenes. She'd never believed that he'd go to these lengths to be in the one place she should be _safe_. She'd never believed he'd meant that scribbled dedication, which now sounds like the promise of a threat. She carries a gun, and she can't use it to protect herself from this.

"Rick Castle. Seems he's found the main character for his next set of novels. A tough but savvy female detective."

"I'm flattered." The alternative to sarcasm is breaking down and screaming.

"Don't be." Captain, she thinks, she certainly is not. She waits, unhappily, for the second shoe to drop, and considers emigration. "He says he has to do research."

"Oh no." She can't stop the wail of horror, sounding like a child presented with Brussels sprouts to eat on their birthday, instead of cake.

"Oh yes." Montgomery still has that peculiar air.

"No way." She's as definite and forceful as she can be. She doesn't have to do this. She hasn't been ordered. Not in so many words.

"Beckett, listen..." Maybe if she gives Montgomery a good reason. Surely he can't want some undisciplined, undisciplinable civilian wandering round his precinct getting in the way and lowering the solve rate? Because in another minute Montgomery is going to make this an order, and then she'll really be screwed.

"Sir, he's like a nine year-old on a sugar rush... totally incapable of taking anything seriously." She doesn't often lie to her superior officer. She knows just how seriously Rick Rodgers can take things. When he has a goal in mind. Whether that goal is destroying a naïve fresher or destroying a mature woman and Detective.

"But he did help solve this case. And when the Mayor's happy, the Commissioner is happy, and when the Commissioner is happy, then I'm happy." She's so screwed. Montgomery is going to make this happen, whatever she says. She might as well capitulate before he makes it a direct order, because it's going to be a hell of a lot easier to wiggle around him if he doesn't.

"How long, sir?" He'll get bored. She'll keep lying about the past, and he'll get bored with it. It should take about a week.

"That's up to him." What? Unlimited? No! And then she turns round and he's right there with a shit-eating grin and she recognises that as _I've won_. He thinks so, does he? Well, she will just see about that. She's got thirty minutes till Lanie shows up, and she can preserve freezingly hostile silence for hours if she has to. (It never fails, in Interrogation. Eventually, they always crack.) She and Lanie will go out and she will pour out her frustration (but never, ever her history) and drown her miserable fury, or furious misery, or both, in Lanie's sympathetic company.

Thirty minutes. She can deal with that. She retreats behind the paperwork and her reserve and ignores the unwanted focus on her.

"Don't you want to know why I'm here, Beckett?"

"No."

"You're going to be the inspiration for the star of my next series."

She ignores that.

"A brilliant female detective: action heroine, successful, gorgeous with a gun."

She ignores that too.

"And of course her writer boyfriend. A classic crime solving duo. Like Harriet Vane and Peter Wimsey. Or Tommy and Tuppence."

Ignoring this is becoming increasingly difficult. She gets those references. How _dare_ he use her addiction to classic English crime writers against her like that? They're completely inappropriate. Ten minutes. Only ten minutes more.

"She'll need to confront her past." Nine minutes. Her silence freezes the air around her. She's almost surprised that there are no drifting snowflakes.

"Her misconceptions." She is not having this conversation. Eight minutes to freedom.

"Her mistakes." She starts to put her papers in order and ignores him further. She is not going to play this game.

"The past always informs the present, Beckett. In novels or in reality. It's a crucial strand of the story. You have to understand the past to comprehend the full complexity of the tale."

With two minutes to go till end of shift, and still without having risen to the bait, Beckett packs up her papers, switches off her computer, and retreats to the restroom to renew her make-up. She feels the need to look her best in whichever bar she and Lanie end up in. Maybe she should take Lanie's advice and try a bit more lipstick. Or a shorter skirt. Or a skirt at all, in fact. She looks at herself unfavourably in the mirror. She's not exactly gone all out to be attractive today, has she? She suddenly realises that she's been staring into the middle distance for several minutes and hustles back out.

Lanie is already there, swapping backchat with Esposito and Ryan …and Castle. A small coil of dread at their four enthusiastic faces squirms in her stomach. She doesn't like the look of this.

"Beckett!" the boys call in unison. "Beckett, you didn't tell us Castle was joining the team."

"Girl," Lanie says, "you better have a good reason for not telling _me_."

"Since it only happened half an hour ago I'd have told you tonight, Lanie. You know, on our _girls_' night out?" She puts a great deal of emphasis on _girls_.

"About that." Lanie looks a touch guilty, though not nearly guilty enough for Beckett's taste. "I thought we might all go out. New team member and all." Beckett looks at the four shiny happy faces around her. Well, three shiny happy faces. The fourth is looking very, very smug. She is abruptly sure that Castle has manipulated the conversation to bring about this outcome. For a moment she considers simply saying _No_. Then she realises that that would bring more questions than she wants to answer. If she wants to keep pretending she's not the Katie Beckett he knew then she can't leave and blow her friends off. That would be a dead giveaway. She savours the word _dead_. If only.

"Okay. But he doesn't get to use your piece, Espo, and Ryan, don't lend him your shield." Three men grin at each other, clearly on the way to mysterious male bonding already. Lanie, on the other hand, is looking very sharply at Beckett. Then she shrugs.

"Okay," Lanie says. "Let's find a bar."

Some little discussion later, in which Beckett plays no part at all, a bar has been selected.

"Lanie and I will see you there," Beckett says, in tones which admit no argument. The boys don't argue. Castle doesn't argue. One small mercy. The three men trail out. Once the elevator doors are shut, Beckett turns to Lanie.

"What the hell are you playing at, Lanie? I wanted a night out with you, not a rerun of the last week." She regards Lanie with irritation. "What gives?"

Lanie looks back at her equally firmly.

"You give. Why're you treating him" – Beckett raises an eyebrow – "You know exactly who I mean, girl. Castle. – like dirt?" She smiles, rather wickedly. "He'd cure your solo Saturday nights, you know."

"Not happening. Not interested."

Lanie considers her friend. She looks a little more stressed than Lanie had appreciated. It's possible that Lanie had made a mistake, agreeing to change the previous plans. Come to think of it, she's not entirely sure how that had happened. "You look a bit tired. You sure you're up for an evening out with anyone?" she asks, now feeling rather as if she's stepped into a concealed minefield.

"I already said _okay_. I just wanted a girls' evening tonight, not a cops' night out. Now we'll be in some dive with bad beer and pool tables."

"Kate, I've seen you hustle. You clean up. You enjoy it. You like the beer, too. So don't you give me this crap about dives with bad beer." Lanie suddenly grins widely. "You could take all Castle's money. That boy is _loaded_. That'd keep you in Jimmy Choos for years."

She sees Kate acquire a nastily thoughtful expression and blesses her idea.

"Let's _do_ this," Kate snaps. "I'm gonna take every last cent in their pockets."

Lanie decides in that instant that she's not going within ten feet of a pool table tonight. She's only just been to the ATM, and her cash needs to last her more than five hours.

The bar is only moderately dingy, the beer is not bad, the fries are better, and there are, _not _regrettably, pool tables. Naturally, Espo, who fancies himself as a bit of a hustler, has found a relatively clean booth by the tables and is showing off to Ryan and Castle. She smiles very sharply. Espo's never played pool with her. When she wants to hustle, she keeps it well away from her co-workers. Cleaning them out wouldn't improve the working relationship. However, she isn't going to clean her team out. Only the unwanted addition. He can afford it. She'll take five, ten off the boys, though. For getting her into this and ruining her evening.

She doesn't realise that she's allowed herself to be trapped into an evening in Castle's company and that she's venturing into the appallingly dangerous territory of competing with him. Old habits die hard, and some of them don't stay dead. (They'd first begun with argument and competition.)

She watches the men for a few games, chatting to Lanie and surreptitiously sizing them up. Ryan's losing, which doesn't surprise her particularly. He's not nearly as competitive as Esposito. Castle and Esposito look relatively even. Neither of them look like they hustle regularly. She'll start with Ryan, while Castle and Espo are still trading failures to pot the eight-ball.

She takes ten dollars from Ryan without ever particularly exerting herself, and without showing off any real talent. When she racks up with Esposito, Castle's talking to Lanie and clearly exerting considerable charm on her. Giggling? Lanie's a disgrace to the sisterhood. She has to work considerably harder to beat Esposito, but he's ten down and grumbling about it when she's done: eye in, action smooth.

She sits down next to Lanie, and doesn't offer up a further game; listening to the conversation without hearing it. When Espo follows, Castle looks at her in a way she doesn't want to remember.

"I'll give you a game, Beckett." She shakes her head. "C'mon. Ten dollars." He smirks. "Unless you're scared to lose." _Got you_. She knew he'd push it.

"Okay," she says neutrally.

An hour later they've got an audience. Beckett's winning, but not in the wholesale manner she'd like. Clearly someone else had been hiding their talents on the baize. Still, she's up. She barely notices when the boys and Lanie bid them farewell, wholly focused on the table and the angles. Slowly she keeps drawing ahead, putting every scrap of effort into it. The expression of intent on her face would frighten the balls into the pockets. It's not easy, but she is _going_ to win this. They've shifted up to twenty on each game. (Katie couldn't play pool. Katie couldn't play any sport at all, not even hit a softball. Beckett can. She's not that loser any more.)

When the bartender calls time on them, Beckett's a hundred dollars up and the edge on her smile would cut steel.

"Pay up, Castle," she grits. She'd have preferred to win by much, much more, but she's won. He's better than he'd showed against Espo, that's for sure. Five ahead out of an entire evening – she looks down at her watch and winces: it's well past midnight and she'll need to get a cab home – is far closer than she wanted. The wider the gap, the more convincing her pretence that she's someone else would be. At least she didn't lose.

He's not reaching for his wallet. "What's the matter, Castle, forget your cash? Pay up. I don't give credit."

"No. You never did give me any credit, did you?" She produces a convincingly blank face.

"What are you talking about? We've never met till last week." Castle looks briefly disgusted, then smooths his face out and produces his trademark irritating smirk.

"Still lying. Beckett, Beckett. Telling lies is naughty. Didn't your mother teach you that?"

"Pay up. Now. I'm going home." The command snap in her voice is automatic and permits no disagreement. Castle's reaching for his wallet before he's thought. That tone had the promise of pain and bullets in it. He pulls out some notes and holds them just out of reach.

"I'm good for the money. See?"

"Hand it over. I want to go home."

"I'll give you it when we get home."

"_What_?"

"I'll give you it when we get home. I couldn't let you go home alone, Beckett. It's not safe. Shouldn't let your colleagues roam the mean streets of New York alone."

"I have a gun. I have lived here for 30 years. I don't need an escort from someone who isn't even a cop." She becomes aware that they have an interested and well-oiled audience and that her voice was rather louder than would have been discreet.

"Let him take you home, lady," a voice calls out in a thick Brooklyn accent.

"I'd let him take me home," a sharp female twang puts in. "Hoo boy, yes. If you don't want him, send him this way."

"Me too," adds another female voice.

"And me." This is all getting out of control. The interested audience is far too interested and it's rapidly closing in with suggestions that are getting more and more physical by the second.

"If you don't want him, hot stuff, I'll take you home." It's a five-foot-three barfly with a broken nose and ingrained dirt.

"Okay!" she says, shrugging her jacket open to show the shield and gun, pulling on command voice and presence till she's taking up all of the air in the bar. But she can't afford for trouble to start. She doesn't know how this has happened but she does know that she has to defuse it quickly. "Okay," she says again, loud enough for the whole audience to hear. "Let's go." She gestures to the door, accompanied by drunken catcalls and whoops and a few disappointed comments from barflies of both sexes and unprepossessing looks and hygiene. The last thing she hears as she leaves is _treat him good, sexy_.

Castle watches the explosive fury roil around Beckett's head and thinks that this is all very satisfactory so far. As long as she doesn't shoot him, of course. He considers his next move. One way or another, he's going to get her. One way, or another, she's going to admit that she's the same Katie Beckett and then she is going to listen to the truth and then she is going to be right back where she belonged. Belongs. Because he is just as addicted as he was all those years ago and he is dead certain that she's not indifferent either. If she were, she'd not be denying she knew him, and she'd let him tell her the story – the _true_ story – and she'd _listen_ and then she'd treat him like she treats anyone else.

But he's still going to follow her around because there's the _other_ story that's howling in his head and shoving out his fingertips and pushing and goading and spurring him to write it and the only reason he's not at his laptop now and flooding the page with words is because he's with the woman that's inspired it and as soon as he isn't with her any more he'll be writing for the rest of the night until the screen blurs and his hands and wrists spike in agony and then he'll stop for a few hours' sleep in which he'll dream of the story and then be driven back to the keyboard. It had been like this in the beginning, the driving, whipping passion for the story; but somewhere in churning out Storm he'd lost it. It's why he'd killed him. Now, here's that passion again, mixed with a very different passion.

He becomes aware that a cab is pulling up and that Beckett is already moving towards it. He follows her closely, already sure of what she's trying to do.

"Move over, Beckett." She's placed herself in the passenger side of the seat, clearly intending to shut the door and leave without him. She doesn't move.

"Two of us," he says to the driver, and simply goes round to take the other side. Once he's in, he starts over. "Where are we going?" It's a question with more than one answer. After a short pause, it becomes clear that it's a question which will receive no answer. "Beckett, if you don't tell the driver your address we'll be going to mine."

"Get out my cab."

"Nope." The driver takes a hand. What is it with all these strangers getting in the mix tonight?

"This man bothering you, lady?"

"Y" –

"She's just sulking because I wouldn't buy her more booze." Castle overrides her opening mouth without a qualm or apology. "Ask anyone in the bar, they'll tell you we've been playing pool and sinking beer all night. I gotta get her home okay." The driver subsides, and moves to put the taxi in gear. Castle's just fast enough to get a hand on her arm before she opens the door and flees the cab.

"Broome Street," he says to the driver, since he has to give him some destination and it's obvious Beckett's plotting an escape. She can't exit a moving cab. But just in case she's stupid enough or suicidal enough or just plain desperate enough to try it (this is a very poor excuse, he knows, for doing precisely what he wants to do) he slides his hand down her arm and ends up holding her hand.

She doesn't even bother to react. Her hand – still small and slim and elegant (her hands had always been beautiful) is limp and unresponsive. Ah. A new attempt to convince him he's unknown to her.

"It won't work, you know." More indifferent silence. "There is nothing you can do that will convince me you're not her." Still no reaction. "You can't keep this up for ever. I'll be following you round till I'm satisfied, so you might as well admit it now." There's not even a flicker of reaction in her face, but there's a faster beat in her wrist. (Her hand had always been swamped in his: his grasp enveloping her from fingertips to pulse point.) He strokes his thumb over it, and the beat kicks up again. Perfectly satisfied, he lets go. (He'd always had to make the first move. She had only done so that once, and never again.)

It seems some things don't change. He'd had to coax her to him before, and now he's going to have to do it again, with the minor added complication that she'll be even less likely to believe his bona fides than she was. Hmm.

* * *

_Thank you for your thoughts. I appreciate all of them very much. Please keep telling me what you think._


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: Who's gonna drive you home?**

The cab is halfway to Broome Street before Beckett speaks. "Turn here, please." The cab driver reacts to the air of authority and swings to the right. Five minutes later she speaks again. "Okay, stop here." He does. She's out the cab before Castle has really worked it out. He's out the cab after her, tossing a bill at the driver, whose noise makes it sound like it was bigger than it should have been – who cares, he can afford it – and skittering after her. She's a lot faster than she was. (Her stride had never been that long. He'd slowed to match her, and had enjoyed the extension of time with her it brought.) But he's still bigger and taller and no matter how fit she is he's not out of condition either.

He catches up to her almost on the steps of a building that he can't imagine that she can afford on a cop's salary, only catching up because she's searching her purse for her keys; and because he's had to chase after her and she's _still_ lying to him and pretending and he knows there's something there and he's angry that she won't listen to him and he's lost at pool all this evening and he _hates_ losing as much as she ever did and he feels he's losing her and she's been living barely a mile from him for _how long_ and he's never spotted her - it's all far too much for him.

He grabs her shoulder and spins her hard round and the anger is rising in her eyes to match his and then he's hauled her against him and he's diving into her mouth and he is going to show her that it wasn't a lie; it was never a lie: it was always _her_. He takes and plunders and she's hard up against him and she's right in it with him and _now_ he doesn't have to worry about scaring her or age differences or anything at all because _this_ is where he needs her to be: caught in and under his mouth and as close as he can hold her and she still fits just perfectly in his arms and she's open and giving and _his_ and for a brief, beautiful interlude it's just as it was before everyone got in the way.

And then it's not.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Suddenly she's struggling to pull away and not at all in it with him any more. He lets go, immediately. "What was that all about?"

"I thought that was obvious. Just like it was. You're just like you were then."

No no no no. She is not going there. "You have never met me before." It was just like before. Just like the twice he'd kissed her in that unbelievably possessive way when she was fourteen. It hadn't been real then, either.

Castle swears under his breath. "Quit this, Beckett. We both know you're lying. You've been lying since the minute you saw me again. Whatever you're telling yourself, you were wrong then and you're wrong now. I just proved you still want me, just the same as I still want you."

Her keys are in the door. "I'm sure you're very good in bed, Castle. I'm sure you've had plenty practice with plenty women. But I wasn't one of them." She opens the door and steps inside. Castle follows, before the outer door shuts in his face. (She had shut the door and never reopened it.)

"No, you weren't. And you know why as well as I do."

"Lose the delusion, Castle. You never met me." Her tone is a warning which he doesn't heed as they reach her own front door. She's turning away from him and unlocking it.

"Never met? Never met? We _dated_ at high school. You remember it. You reacted just the same a minute ago as you did then. You were my Katie Beckett then and you're still my Katie Beckett now and you are going to _listen_ to me."

"You're on drugs," she says contemptuously. "Imagining things. You never knew me. We never dated." That last, at least, is perfectly true. Castle is proving appallingly, horrifyingly reluctant to believe her. She pushes her door open and turns within the doorframe. "Go home and sober up."

The posture and position is one denial too many for Castle to bear. (She'd stood foursquare in the doorframe and demolished him.)

"You're _lying_. You lied to me then and you're lying to me now and I have had _enough_ of you lying and shutting me out." He pushes forward and she steps back. "I _loved_ you and you lied and shut me out without even trying to find out the truth."

It's the last straw. She is going to finish this, here and now.

"Loved me? _Loved _me? Who's lying now, Ricky? You did it for a bet and when I called your bluff, you bastard, you told everyone in school you'd screwed me anyway." She assumes a hip-out, provocative posture learnt for every Vice op: the hard, unloving come-on of every street walker selling it on a dark corner. "Well, okay. Here you are again and now I'm all grown up. So, _Ricky_, why not? C'mon in." Her voice and eyes are hard. "Fuck me like you told everyone you did at prom. Why not, if it makes you go away? You might even be really good at it."

She raises both hands to the neck of her shirt and undoes a button, still holding his gaze. "What's keeping you, _Ricky_? If the way I looked then and my age wasn't a problem, what's your problem now? You already offered. Can't handle the real thing?" Her hands drop: her adamantine gaze does not.

Castle realises that he doesn't know this hard-faced, hard-eyed woman at all. The Katie Beckett he thought he'd met again would never have invited him to bed with less emotion and liking than she expends on her coffee. Any desire for her doesn't extend to this sort of a transaction. He'd never thought that she could be like this: he's seen more sincerity on the face of a high-class escort trying to attract his attention. The Katie Beckett that had shivered when he pecked her cheek, shuddered and pushed him away when he caught her in; the Katie Beckett that was right in it with him five minutes ago: none of those would have behaved like this. She doesn't even seem to think that he would care: she just thinks he'd be happy with a meaningless fuck and then she can throw him away.

He doesn't move.

"Now there's no challenge, no chase, you don't want it?" The edge of contempt in her tone makes it transparently clear what she thinks of him. "Fine, Ricky. Leave. It was all over a long time ago. Just leave now." She turns away again, back straight, neck stiff, shoulders braced. She hears the door shut behind her. It's worked. She's pretended to be someone she isn't, someone she'd hate, and it's worked. She was sure it would disgust him, and make him leave, and it's worked.

It's all over now, baby blue.

He cannot believe that _any_ Katie Beckett, then, now or at any point in between, could ever have become this. He turns to the still open door, to leave. He will _not_ be a party to such a demeaning, degrading transaction.

And abruptly he realises that _neither would she_. The woman who'd searched and found the _right_ killer, not the easy option; the girl who'd faced him down rather than give in to social pressure – the girl who'd pretended and hid her real self so well he couldn't tell. Ah, now then. How much better a pretender must she be by now? Especially given that statement of history, which is only now hitting his brain.

He closes the door with himself firmly on the inside.

"I never said that to anyone." The shock of him being on the wrong side of the door hits like a bullet. She turns around so very slowly, colour draining away, pride holding her upright.

"Changed your mind, _Ricky_?" He ignores that.

"I never told anyone that." His face is as white as hers, blue eyes blazing. "I was at prom for just long enough to find the people I thought were my friends. Then I went home and drank myself unconscious." She shrugs, indifferent.

"So? Who cares who started the rumour? You, your friends, whoever. You can tell a man by the company he keeps." Unfortunately that insult doesn't distract him.

"You're still lying to me." His tone turns harder. "What'll you do if I _do_ take you up on your offer? What if I call your bluff?" He's prowling closer. "Will you go through with it? How far will you go to try to drive me away this time? Because I don't think you can do it. You couldn't have done it then and you can't do it now." He's almost on top of her: his eyes sapphire hard. His hands come to her shoulders, sensing the biting tension and absolute rigidity of the muscle beneath. She is utterly devoid of colour except in her still-crystalline eyes. Even her lips are bloodless. He holds her gaze as the silence stretches ever more thinly. Then he slowly starts to bend his head towards her, as if he would grasp her more firmly and draw her into him. It takes until he's almost touching her lips before she snaps and pulls frantically, desperately away from him.

It's just as well she'd broken. He'd begun to think she really wasn't bluffing. And _he_ could never have gone through with it if she hadn't been.

She looks defeated, now. "You win. You always win. Go home now. You've won."

"No." He steps towards her again. "You are going to listen to me."

"Why? So you can tell me more lies? Not interested. Life's moved on since then. You're not relevant any more. I've got bigger fish to fry than worrying about a hurt high school senior who hasn't grown up." She takes a breath and flings her final knife. "Get over yourself, Ricky. It was never real. You've told yourself a story that you can show up and tell me your tale and I'll fall into your outstretched arms in gratitude that it wasn't your fault." Her sarcasm slices the air. "It doesn't matter what the truth is or was or might be. Failed teen romances aren't important."

"So what _is_ important? I want to make it right. What's so important to you that you won't even _think_ about giving it another go? _What happened to you, Katie_?"

There's no answer. Her jaw is set, her mouth pinched shut. He knows he's already gone too far, but he can't stop himself.

"Okay. If you won't tell me then other people will." And then he steps over the cliff-edge. "I'm sure your parents would be delighted if I showed up and said I wanted to get back in touch with you."

"You can try. I'll even give you the addresses where you can find them." She spins away to a small, tidy desk and scrawls over two post-it notes. She hands him them. He looks down and tries to decipher the writing. One says NY Presbyterian, 21 Bloomingdale Rd, White Plains. The other says Cypress Hills Cemetery. "Good luck," she says coldly.

He's still looking down at the little yellow squares in his hands and the black writing on them when she opens the door.

"Goodbye."

He simply stands there, too shocked to make his feet move. He recognises the first address. The second needs no explanation.

"What the hell?"

"One's drunk. One's dead. Good luck in getting any story out of either of them. We're done here. Close the door behind you." She walks through another door and shuts it in his appalled face without the slightest compunction.

She knew this would happen the moment he showed up. All her troubles dragged up and exposed: all the matters she's worked so hard to overcome, all her history. She sits on the edge of her bed with her face in her hands, elbows on her knees, and stares into the floor without seeing it. She'd thought the only problem would be dealing with him. She should have remembered about his persistence. She should have remembered that he never knew when to stop pushing.

She should have remembered that just when you think it's all going well life kicks you in the teeth and knifes you in the gut for good measure.

When she goes back out to wash and get ready for bed he's gone. She hadn't heard the door shut, lost in her memories. She breathes a sigh of relief and plunges into uneasy sleep.

* * *

Castle had been so shocked by the two addresses that he hadn't even considered not leaving. One in rehab, one in a grave. Well, that explains a lot: the pain in her eyes, the harsh focus on the case, and, little as he likes it, why she really does not seem to care about him or his explanations. It really isn't relevant to who she is now. A little further thought tells him that seeing him probably reminds her of two things: her previously happy home and, contrasted, the absolute hell that high school must have been after he'd gone.

Oh. He looks at his behaviour of the past few days and winces. She was _protecting_ herself, and he simply trampled over it. Where'd he lose his own empathy? He's just bulldozed straight in, and okay he didn't know that his so-called friends had trashed her reputation but she'd made it pretty clear she didn't want to know him and he'd ignored it. (It had worked in high school, though, she'd come round. Eventually.)

He decides to play least-in-sight for a day or two, at least if there isn't a case. If there's a case, he has to follow her, because his story and his new character are yammering in his head and he absolutely needs to know more, and see it first-hand. But if there isn't a case, he's going to leave her alone and try to work out what happened to put one parent in rehab and one in a grave, and then maybe he'll be able to work out how to start again.

Because he desperately wants to start again, and so far all he's achieved is a complete fuck-up.

* * *

He spends the next couple of days sketching out his outline to acceptable standards, fleshing out random pieces as and when they occur to him; and as and when they don't, exploring Google and the like with the search term _Beckett_. It doesn't take long to paint the centrepiece of the picture, though he's still no clearer about its background. Mother dead, stabbed in an alley, police have no clues. There's no news article about a killer being caught for it, either. Okay, so he'd been right first time. But that doesn't explain why her father's in rehab. Surely the two of them would have been drawn closer; supported each other?

He doesn't understand that piece of the Beckett jigsaw. He doesn't have to, yet, because he understands enough. He certainly understands where her hard shell of reserve and unwillingness to acknowledge him comes from. He's been the subject of enough untrue gossip himself that he gets it. Of course, he's also been the subject of enough _true_ gossip not to worry too much – publicly.

All the time, though, the plan for his new story (it'll be a series, he can feel it) is ripping through his mind and taking up his hours. He hasn't been as productive in years: so much so, he doesn't notice that the days are sliding past until, the weekend and Monday gone, Tuesday slipping into mid-morning, he realises that he's run out of words for the first time since he was taken in for questioning. He saves his outline to re-read later, before he sends it to Black Pawn, and, separately, the document that is, however scrappily, becoming his working draft; and then ponders.

He hasn't been told about a body. But he's come to the end of his inspiration, and he needs a break from his desk, his laptop and from writing; and he needs another dose of ideas. He can't hear the bullpen or his character (or Beckett, which is currently pretty much the same thing) in his head any more.

Besides which, he needs to mend matters. He hadn't needed to push and shove and force matters and confessions and try to push her back towards him. He should have known that wouldn't work. (She'd always been stubborn.) He'd done it not just because he desperately wanted his Katie back (which is ridiculous, now he actually stops to think rather than simply reacting: it's been fifteen years and how is he quite as addicted as he was as a teen? He'd loved Kyra and he'd married Meredith and then Gina and he'd forgotten all about Katie Beckett, so why is this hitting him so hard now?) but because he'd forgotten that there are people out there who don't have to give him what he wants and who don't have to like him or talk to him nicely or treat him well.

In fact, he's grown detached from reality, happily floating in his happy celebrity bubble protected by his happy celebrity status: perfect daughter, perfect loft, perfect career, perfect life. So, let's face it, he'd seen hot-cop and wanted it, and when he found that it was Katie – _Beckett_, dammit, he thought he'd cured that mistake – he'd been – ow, ow – motivated at least as much by wanting to show her he was a success and she shouldn't have shut the door on him and thinking that he could easily fix it by telling her the story – ow, ow, she'd been right about that too – and she'd fall into his arms again, as by any better motives. If he'd had any better motives. _Ugh, Rick. Not attractive_.

He does have a better motive, though. He had never wanted to give her up, then. And if he looks _honestly_ at his feelings, sure there was hurt pride and wanting to prove his star status and that she should want him, all masquerading as him telling himself he was still in love because that was a much nicer motive than those true ones – but under all of that there's still something. A feeble something, perhaps? But it's getting stronger by the minute, as he sees her again. He's not sure, truthfully, what's there. A heavy slug of lust, that's certain – and possibly even returned; an appreciation of her razor mind, yes, that too, still; and something else. Maybe a desire to be _friends_ again: to share interests and argue and compete and simply be together. Start with that, whether it's more or not, and maybe he can make this right.

Time to apologise, and start again.

* * *

_Thank you all for your thoughts and comments. I really appreciate them, and everyone who reads, reviews, favourites and follows. _


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: You're my best friend**

A few days pass without anything remarkable happening. No bodies, no new evidence on old cases, no change. No Castle, either. Not that this is a surprise. She doesn't expect him, new body or not, after the other night.

Until Tuesday morning rolls around and he appears, despite the lack of corpses.

She looks up at the unfamiliar footsteps and presence, and then down and away, uninterested, back to the autopsy report and the lists of possible but so far useless leads.

"Hey," Castle says. She looks back up. He doesn't sound teasing or arrogant or flirtatious or demanding or angry. He sounds... civil. Unassuming. And a very tiny bit uncertain. She gives him an assessing, cop's glance: seeing everything in one swift flick of her eyes. Insofar as anyone is ever sincere, that's sincerity.

"Hey," she replies, neutrally.

"I'm… I'm sorry. About the other night." There's an uncomfortable pause. He squirms, a little embarrassed, as she says nothing, too surprised to make any sort of a remark in return. He rapidly changes the subject before he ruins it all again.

"May I ask you some questions" – _oh God, here we go again_. She's starting to open her mouth on a snap when the next words register – "about the precinct, and procedure?"

Oh. _Not_ what she was expecting. Okay. He's apologised. This isn't about her. She can deal with this. Neutrality and nothing personal: that she can manage. He's going to shadow her, like it or not, so she might as well be adult about it.

"Okay."

And he does. It feels like thousands of questions, though in fact it's less than half an hour before she claims a dry throat and he offers, politely, to get them each a cup of coffee from the machine in the break room. Mildly maliciously, she doesn't warn him how awful it is. If he's forgotten, that's his lookout.

The expression on his face when he tastes it is ample recompense for having to answer all those questions.

"You drink this?" She nods. "And you're all still alive?" She nods again.

"Seems so. Unless you think we're the undead army."

"You should all be donated to science. Your blood must contain a universal remedy for poison. This is vile." For the first time since he re-entered her life, Beckett's lips quirk in a slight smile.

"It's what we've got." The smile sneaks on to her mouth again. "If you drop dead we'll send flowers – in a coffee cup – to the funeral."

She can cope with this. It's as if they'd never met before. Questions about work, a definition of research that she can deal with, nothing that brings up any memories of any sort; in fact, neutrality. It's just what she needs. Not that it reduces her wariness or lack of trust in his ultimate motives. But if he can be pleasantly neutral she can be pleasantly neutral. A truce, in fact.

Another batch of questions and another hour later the truce is still holding: Esposito and Ryan, equally bored of paperwork and cold cases, have joined in the discussion, and there is presently a relatively good-natured argument running as to what constitutes a really good cop. Three cops and one writer are currently producing at least six different views.

"You need to be able to take a man down. Shoot when you have to." Esposito's sniper background is on full display.

"You need to be able to know _when_ to shoot. And when not to," comes the response.

"First you need to follow the trail. Find the evidence. Do the donkey work." That's Ryan, of course. He does a lot of donkey work.

"_First_ you need to feel the scene. Listen to what it's telling you. Look without preconceptions." Now that's interesting. That's _very_ interesting. _Is that what you do, Beckett_?

"Beginner's eyes," he says to himself. _Beginner's eyes_. He scrawls it on a notepad. It's going to be important.

"Nah. You need to have a suspect. 'S almost always money or sex." All three cops nod firmly at Espo's words. "If you knew the killer you could just go bring him in. No fuss."

"You need to know the killer's mind, Espo. His pattern. The profile."

"You anglin' for an FBI slot, Beckett?" She winces.

"No way," she says, with some vigour. Ryan grins at her.

"You could get back with your Federal friend." Beckett glares at him.

"Not likely, Ryan."

"Aw, why not? He was sorta cute. Big blond with blue eyes." Castle starts very slightly. With astounding self-control, he says nothing. When Beckett looks at him, he's blandly amiable. The bite of jealousy (what? Jealousy?) that he's just felt at the thought of Beckett matching wits and minds (and bodies) with someone else is entirely ridiculous. He's had plenty of girlfriends and two – short-lived – wives in the interim, for God's sake. But the truce is _still _holding. Stretched, through his own unreasonable desire to have Beckett all to himself, but holding.

"Past's past. You can't go back." Castle manages not to wince. Beckett is sublimely and genuinely unconscious of what she has just said.

" 'S lunchtime," Ryan says hopefully.

"I could buy you all lunch as a thank you for answering questions all morning and because I'll be around all afternoon," Castle invites.

"What?" the three cops ejaculate in almost total unison.

"I need to soak up the atmosphere. Get the feel of the place. Hear how you all interact and talk to each other." It all sounds so very reasonable and logical to Beckett, but for some reason fretfulness is feathering her nerves.

Lunch, and the rest of the day, passes without incident or a single personal question, which for some obscure reason makes Beckett more nervous than ever about Castle's presence. Still, he's behaving himself. She accepts it as a small mercy and forgets her inchoate worries as the next day passes similarly, and the next week, and indeed the whole month and two cases. By that time she's got used to Castle's semi-constant presence, and has more or less accepted him as a necessary part of the precinct and the team. She is, in fact, fairly comfortable with him.

Castle has taken substantial pains not to put so much as a toe out of line. The success of the quiet non-pushing of the first day at the precinct taught him that the only way he'd get anywhere near what he wanted would be by pulling right back. The only thing he'd done that might have drawn Beckett's attention to him was producing a really excellent coffee machine, and he passed that off as at least as much for his own good as theirs. It had taken her a few days to succumb to its lure, (she never succumbed easily, to anything) late one night, and that might have been self-preservation, really, preventing her falling asleep at her desk and incurring the wrath of her Captain.

Beckett certainly hadn't expected Castle to turn up that late. Still, and much to her amazement, he hadn't made anything of it. He hadn't, in fact, made anything out of anything since she'd told him to seek answers of the drunk or the dead, barring a few smart comments that had fallen out of his mouth without the input of his brain. What he _had_, and has, done is to apply his mind to the cases, to considerable effect. Since she's not willing to be out-thought on her own turf, especially by a non-cop, she tries harder, too, which means that perforce Ryan and Esposito step up.

Montgomery watches from a safe distance as his best team's stats get better and better, and congratulates himself. His one small regret is that Castle appears to have given up any idea of trying to persuade Beckett out on a date. Beckett, on the other hand, has lost the absolute abhorrence of the initial meeting and is treating Castle almost like she does any of the detectives. He laments the absence of soap opera but applauds the outcomes. His meetings at 1PP are currently almost pleasant.

Castle is finding prolonged good behaviour to be more of a strain with each passing day, and certainly more of a strain than he had anticipated. The longer he restricts his interactions with Beckett (he almost never thinks of her as Katie, or even Kate, now) to the cases and the precinct; and the more they compete to solve the instant case; the more he wants to step away from being merely work colleagues and into something more. He just doesn't have a good idea how to achieve it, and since he prefers being around Beckett and the constant supply of inspiration that leaves him slaved to his laptop long into the night to _not_ being there, he keeps on showing up whenever there's a case.

It gets worse when she drops by late one night to discuss the case, because although he is _delighted_ that she's come to rely on the challenge and competition that he's providing, he'd very much rather have added a nice glass of wine and a tiny step in the right direction, such as an arm round her, or his hand over hers. (Her hand always fitted into his.) And then it gets worse again when she tells him enough of the story of her parents for him to understand why she simply didn't care about his feelings or apologies or wants. Her mother dead, stabbed, no solution or reason ever found. Her father, devastated, retreating into the bottle because he couldn't bear life without her: going to rehab, quitting for a time, always falling off the wagon again. He'd attended White Plains for three months this last time, so far, but now he's back on track, she tells him. He doesn't tell her that he knows: that he did a little digging and found out her father's address; that he thought that he might visit, but couldn't, in the end, go through with it.

She's gone from the bullpen before he can rise and take the two steps to her; to hold her to him and try to heal the hurt he saw, before she blocked it off. It's the same as ever it was, Beckett never admitting to feelings or pain or needing anyone. (She'd never said she loved him, when he had said it to her.)

Castle makes it through another week before his impatience starts to get the better of him. He's got two options. Ask the whole gang out to a bar and make another attempt to take Beckett home, or ask Beckett out on her own. On balance – well, the only way that will work – he thinks he'd better invite the whole gang. He has no more idea of what Beckett might be thinking today than he did the day before he met her again.

"How about we all go to a bar tonight?" he announces, just before the official end of shift on Friday. Ryan is predictably enthusiastic. Esposito begrudgingly agrees. He's been ever so slightly edgy for a week or so. Beckett looks doubtful.

"I'm not sure, Castle. I'm tired. I just want to go home." He looks at her with pathetically huge blue eyes.

"Just one beer, Beckett. Promise I won't challenge you to a pool game." His eyes sparkle. "No fun if you're too tired to play well."

"I could beat you at pool if I were sleepwalking," Beckett snips. Castle seizes the opportunity.

"You're on."

Hang on a moment, how did that happen? Oh. Because she couldn't let the note of challenge pass unanswered. Arrgh. Oh well, they've got along fine for the last month or so. As if they'd never met before, in fact. Which is just what she wants. Peace and no fuss. Now, all she needs to do is lose the occasional dreams of how it used to be. (He uses the same aftershave, and the scent sometimes triggers memories, or dreams, of a better time.) She could do to lose the occasional feeling that it would be very nice to be tucked into a large warm man again, too. She could certainly do without the dreams of how it could be now. She glares, as much in reaction to her thoughts as to Castle's suggestion.

"Okay, boys. Where are we going?"

Fairly quickly they are all ensconced in a relatively clean bar (clearly not one Esposito chose) where there is a good selection of beer and other liquors and some unoccupied pool tables. The latter does not endear the location to Beckett. A large glass of surprisingly good white wine, however, does. It even reconciles her to Castle (she almost never thinks of him as Rick, still less Rodgers, now) sitting next to her, about which, had she been less tired, she would have cared more.

If she had been less tired, she might have worked out that Castle had made sure that matters would come about that way, by being the man buying the beers. His observations had made him perfectly sure that Beckett would never sit between Ryan and Esposito. It would be like splitting up Shaggy and Scooby. (He's not letting that out where the boys might hear. He'd definitely not like the outcome.) Ergo, she'd sit on the other side, the apex of the triangle, which conveniently means that he'd have to be next to her. Baby steps.

After the first round of beers has been sunk, and Beckett is slowly sipping at her wine and watching a second round for everyone else appear on the table, Ryan demands that Espo give him a chance to win back his last set of losses and the pair of them disappear to a pool table some distance away. Conveniently, it's well out of earshot.

"Whatcha doin', bro?"

"Giving them a bit of space."

"Say what?"

"Something's going on. Dunno what. D'you remember the first time Castle was in?" Espo thinks back, and shrugs.

"Yeah, so?"

"Spent all his time trying to cosy up to Beckett and getting knocked back. Then there was that night in the bar when we left them playing pool with Beckett looking like she wanted to shoot Castle not pool. Then he didn't come in for a coupla days. Ever since he's treated her like she's his sister."

"Get to the point, Ryan. If you got a point."

"Point is, it doesn't feel right. Something's up. So we oughta help it along a bit. Starting by letting them have a chat." Esposito growls low in his throat.

"I'm not helping Castle against Beckett. Just 'cause you're star-struck don't mean that we don't have Beckett's back."

"Dumbass. Course I got Beckett's back, same as you. But when you – or she – aren't looking he's watching her. Not like usual, but like there's something there." Ryan breaks, moderately efficiently, and pots a stripe, moves round to line up another shot. Espo leans on his cue and scowls.

"We got her back. She don't need anyone else. We're a team. Three of us. He's just a tag-along."

"Espo, you're a jackass. He's upped our solve rate till we're outta sight. You like that as much as I do, 'specially when payday comes around." He pots another ball. "If he gets out of line, we'll deal with him. If you wanna warn him we're watching, go ahead. But give the man a chance. 'S not like either of us want one." Esposito shudders.

"That would just be _wrong_, bro." Ryan misses, and Espo moves to take his shot.

"Too right. So cut the man some slack, okay? If she lays him out then we'll deal with him." Esposito scowls more blackly and takes his ire out on a stun shot that rattles the table as the ball drops into the pocket. He pots another two before he misses and speaks again.

"If he does anythin' at all to upset her I'll have his balls for paperweights. 'Kay?"

Ryan doesn't answer for a moment, being too busy potting. He drops the remains of the stripes and lines up on the eight ball. "Left corner," he says, and strikes. Espo makes a noise of considerable disgust.

"Fluke. Best of three?" he challenges.

"Sure. You got your beer there?"

"Course. What sorta idiot leaves his beer behind?" Ryan raises his bottle in salute.

"Not this one." He flicks a glance back at the booth where Castle and Beckett are still sitting, not killing each other. Then he whips back round and takes a longer look.

"Best of five, Espo." Ryan thinks that they'd better give the remains of the team a bit more space. Not that they seem to be giving each other much space.

* * *

When Esposito and Ryan go off to play pool, Beckett shifts slightly to put a more definitive gap between herself and Castle. She is not interested in reviving the past, and she's not going to give him the slightest impression that she is. This business of shadowing her is fine as far as it goes, and she's pleased with the improved solve rate, but she's not seeing any reason to get closer. None that makes sense, anyway. Her baser instincts are not in control of her actions and no matter how much her senses tell her that she finds his presence not simply neutral but pleasant; that the traces of aftershave on the air have some very strange effects on her nerves, and that he is still, insane as that may be, as appealing to her preference for big, slightly dangerous men as ever he was (He caused it. Imprinting, but she's not an experimental duckling.); she is not listening to them. Physical senses should defer to common sense, and common sense says that the whole problem with Castle is that he's dangerous. Dangerously clever, dangerously devious, dangerously attractive, and very definitely dangerous to her heart. (He broke her heart, once upon a time long ago.)

Initially, it seems to work. Conversation is restricted to precinct matters and yet more questions. Castle never seems to run out of questions, ever. Surely she's told him more than he'll ever need to know about precinct procedure and process? As she's answering, the level of her wine smoothly drops, and when it's done somehow, without Castle actually moving, another one appears. That's a trick she could do to learn. Magicking up glasses full of wine would make her extremely popular.

She relaxes a little. This might actually have been a good idea, though she's still tired. She fails to notice that Castle's questions have shifted tone slightly: from strict procedurals to asking how she feels about the procedure or practice. What does _she_ do when she gets a call? Why? How does it feel when she interviews a suspect? What about the family? How does she deal with them? Why? And so on. The man asks _why_ more often than a hyper-talkative two-year old. But it's still just about neutral and the professionally courteous truce is still holding and he hasn't said or done anything she would object to.

The questions imperceptibly shift again. What drives a good cop? Why become a cop? How do you get to be a detective? Why? What does she like most, and least? Why not be in the FBI? Or the CIA? Don't you want to be a spy? What's it like working with the other agencies? Does it help to live close to the precinct? Are shifts rigid or do you do the hours it takes? What about time off? What does she do in her time off?

Beckett stops hard on that one.

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"I want to know what cops do in their time off."

"Same as everyone else. The laundry, the shopping, housework, hobbies, friends." She grins suddenly. "In Ryan's case, studying GQ to improve his dress sense. Espo probably goes target shooting." Castle snickers, making his eyes crinkle appealingly. Unobtrusively, he edges a tiny bit closer.

"What do you do?"

"Run, read, watch a movie. Usual stuff." She hasn't noticed that she's answered an overtly personal question. "You?"

"Spend time with my daughter, try to avoid my mother's stage friends, write. Launch parties or readings or signings, if there's a new book. Usual stuff." Usual if you're a best-selling novelist, Beckett supposes. Though it's interesting that his first answer is time with his daughter. That's hardly the sign of a full-on playboy.

Castle clamps his teeth down on a suggestion that Beckett comes and watches a movie with him. Instead he moves another fraction closer. He's very nearly shoulder to shoulder, and Beckett hasn't (yet, he thinks) noticed.

He doesn't realise that Ryan _has_ noticed.

* * *

_Thank you all for your comments and for reading. I appreciate all of you, very much._


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: Take me home**

Castle takes a detour from the path of his plans before Beckett can work out that he's about six inches closer than she's allowed him at any other time, and about ten inches closer than he was when he first sat down.

"You promised me a chance to win my money back at pool. C'mon, there's a table free."

"I don't remember wagering on it."

"Scared you'll lose?"

"No. Not after last time."

"Where did you learn to shoot pool anyway?" Castle carefully doesn't say _because when I knew you before, you couldn't have put a ball in the pocket without picking it up_. Still, if it had been true then, it certainly isn't true now.

"College. Academy."

"Huh." He changes the subject. He'll go back to it later. He'd rather like to know where college had been. "Ten dollars a game?" As opposed to, say, dinner's on the one who loses, which would be preferable. He's still treading very cautiously.

"Okay. But when someone gets to fifty we stop." That seems a fine idea to Castle. Not least because on the basis of the first time they'll be here till midnight – long after Ryan and Espo have cleared off. If he's really lucky, and given the carefully selected location of this bar, which means that the route to his loft takes in the route to Beckett's apartment, he'll get to take her home. She might just have relaxed enough that he can, depending on the atmosphere, put a friendly arm around her. Maybe. He falls into a momentary and entirely unjustified daydream of kissing her goodnight, until her brisk tone cuts into it and destroys the instant.

"Are we playing or not?" He hoists himself up and follows her to the table, beer in hand. She's brought her drink, too. This time, he's prepared for both her absolute competitiveness and her ability. This time, so is she for his. The first couple of games are cautious: safe play and clean shots. Espo and Ryan finish their matches and wander over to watch, although whether they're watching the game, the carefully neutral interactions, Beckett's apparent disinterest in anything other than winning and occasional sips of wine, (they've never seen anyone drink so slowly: doesn't she know that Friday nights are for letting your hair down? Well, obviously not. She never lets her hair down.) or trying to establish whether Ryan's suppositions and the consequent need for a _discussion_ with Castle are correct, is not precisely clear.

Matters continue more or less evenly. Beckett takes a short break some time into her second glass of wine, but there's been no reason for Esposito to play big brother. Yet. Castle hasn't missed the boys' considerable interest in the game, or Espo's edginess, and has therefore ensured that there is no evidence of anything other than all colleagues together. He's learnt so much from his mother. Some of it she might even know about. When she comes back, having taken rather longer than expected, she looks a little more tired.

"Last game. I gotta go home." The boys think nothing of it. Castle, on the other hand, thinks there's something more than she's saying, and, unworthily, wonders if this is the break he's been looking for.

"Okay," he says, and sets his mind to winning.

Through a combination of clever positioning and taking some extraordinary risks, he does. Beckett looks momentarily extremely annoyed, but hands over ten dollars with a modicum of grace and good-loser-ship that Castle is certain it took considerable effort and years of practice to develop. (She'd always hated losing. She hadn't been graceful about it, either, though after a while he'd generally solved the issue with a kiss. Or several.) The boys applaud gently, and the evening is brought to a close. So they think.

"Which way is everyone going?" Castle asks blandly, with entirely ulterior motives. Espo and Ryan admit to needing to get out of Manhattan. "I'm going to SoHo," he points out.

"Beckett lives in that direction," Ryan says innocently. "Beckett, you should hitch a ride with Castle." He grins nastily. "You gotta protect him from thieves and murderers." Just for an instant it looks as if Ryan is going to be the victim of a murder. Espo kicks him, unseen.

Beckett growls. Now she's been trapped into the same cab as Castle. There is no way she can explain to the boys that she's not getting in a car with Castle because she still doesn't wholly trust his motives. She's just a little unsure how she ended up out at all this evening, still less sitting next to Castle, still less than that playing pool with him till nearly midnight. She's sure that somehow, some way Castle is manipulating events. But she cannot see how Castle could have manipulated Ryan. Ryan and Esposito are her team and she trusts them to have her back no matter what.

It doesn't occur to her at all, not for one single solitary instant, that Ryan, and certainly not Esposito, might think she needed something more than her single solitary life. If it had, she'd have considered having herself committed. She doesn't interfere in their lives and they don't interfere in hers.

The problem is solved when Castle, without any apparent effort, acquires a cab and holds the door for her. Muttering darkly to herself, Beckett slides in and as far across as is possible while not actually opening the opposite door and exiting again. When Castle follows her the taxi seems very overcrowded, suddenly, and somewhat airless. She opens the window to defend herself against the scent of aftershave.

"Where to?" asks the driver. There's a slight pause. Beckett doesn't want to give Castle her address. She is therefore utterly horrified when he gives it to the driver instead and she's forced to realise that at some point – no, she knows exactly which point – he's learnt it. He's known it since that bitter, vicious evening a month ago. And abruptly all the tension floods out of her because he's known her address for a month and hasn't used it, where he could so easily have done so. He could have shown up at her place in _exactly_ the way that he used to show up outside study hall, or home room, or the library: every day until she gave in. (She gave in then.) But he hasn't. He hasn't pushed or forced or even asked questions. She relaxes further. She doesn't need to worry about Castle any longer, and anyway she doesn't have the time.

She's got a different problem to worry about, now. When she'd taken her break she'd checked her phone, having forgotten about it since they'd reached the bar. There's been a message from the hip…hap…hep? Oh, the hell with the word – liver clinic. She needs to come to Presbyterian, tomorrow. There are some matters to discuss. She sinks into herself. She knows what this may mean.

Lost in her worries, when Castle pats her hand to attract her attention, she doesn't think, simply turns her hand up under his in an automatic reaction that she'd learnt years ago. She only realises what she's done when there's a sharp, almost-painful flex of his fingers immediately followed by a grip around her hand (his hand had always enveloped hers) and a very surprised gasp. It appears that he's been talking – there's a surprise – for a moment or two without her noticing.

"Sorry?"

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." She had always said that, true or not. Another thing that hasn't changed, Beckett hiding any hint of weakness. He'd learned to read the smallest reactions and tells: the slight changes in the speed of her pulse or her breathing; the fractional degrees of tension or relaxation in her body. Her voice – her voice had almost always been under her complete control. Her words had rarely given anything away. The changes in the feeling of her hand in his, or later her form tucked against him, had been a rather different matter. And now she's let her hand fall into that old pattern and she hasn't yet noticed – and he is definitely not stupid enough to tell her – that she hasn't moved away. He doesn't change his grasp at all, and doesn't move his fingers or thumb. (Once, he would have stroked.) Her hand is still small and delicate and elegant and wholly covered by his.

She doesn't say anything more, retreating back into the shadows of her thoughts as the streetlamps and the neon signs pass by. Castle doesn't break the mood, and doesn't make the slightest motion that might recall to her attention that her hand is still within his. Baby steps.

The cab pulls up in front of Beckett's building far too shortly thereafter for Castle's taste. He _wants_ to get out with her, walk her to her door and kiss her goodnight – he _wants_ to kiss her good morning, too, but that's not an option – but he's actually made progress tonight and if he pushes any harder she'll notice what she's done and step back. In any case, he scents a problem here: one with which Beckett is far more concerned than she is with him. Whatever it is, it's new this evening. So when she gets out he merely says _Good night, see you at the precinct_, and restrains himself from any of the many and varied actions which he would like to take, starting with – how _odd_ – not kissing her, but providing support and protection from whatever is getting to her. (He'd protected her from the bullies.)

Beckett is slightly surprised that Castle doesn't try to get out, but puts it down to their resolutely neutral relationship and forgets about it in the much greater worry of tomorrow. She also forgets, or possibly never really noticed, that she'd not only let Castle hold her hand but that it had been as comfortingly solid and strong as it ever had been. (She'd been small, then, and been kept safe in the feeling of much bigger, harder strength around her. Now she's tall and steel-strong herself, and has forgotten that she ever liked that earlier feeling.) She takes herself to bed, and tries to sleep as the fear of tomorrow's news pads over her pillows and whispers nightmares into her ears.

* * *

Beckett wakes early – far too early to start the journey to the hospital. She compensates with a second, and then a third, cup of coffee, and leaves the moment it's likely that she'll get there at a semi-civilised hour. Her father has given consent for her to be told everything: all the legalities are in place should he be…incapable of consent. She has a very bad feeling about what's coming. She's not wrong.

"Your father is not recovering as well as previously. He stopped drinking almost as soon as he came under our care, but the damage to his liver has substantially increased. We can treat it, but…"

"But what?" Her voice is sharp with nervousness.

"But we cannot guarantee a full, or even a partial, recovery."

"Does he know that?"

"Yes."

"How long until you know if he'll recover?"

"A week till the results come back."

There are a few more statements dealing with symptoms after that, but Beckett doesn't take them in. It's just as bad as she'd thought. She needs to talk to her dad. She might have flung the pejorative epithet _one's drunk_ at Castle in extremis but she still loves her father, flawed and failed as he is, and if he were to be… gone… she'd be quite alone. She can't bear that thought: that he might desert her so.

She gives soft, sad thanks to the medical staff and returns to her car, back to Manhattan, to consider how best to try to persuade her father; how best to try to keep him whole. She feels very alone, suddenly. Twenty-nine is too young to be orphaned, in this day and age, but she doesn't yet see how to stop it. She meanders through the remainder of the day, mechanically dealing with her chores, all the time searching for the right words, the right pressure points. She can do it with suspects and witnesses and low-lives of all flavours, and yet here, where it really matters most, she can't see how to do it.

* * *

Sunday arrives without any great revelations for successful discussion with Beckett's father, but she calls him mid-morning even though she has no idea what to say. So she does what she's good at, defers it till later and says she'll come by that afternoon.

When she sees him at first she's reassured. He doesn't look any worse than usual: eyes not too bloodshot, skin not too yellowed, not dreadfully thin. His hands aren't shaking. Much. No worse than usual. But when she looks more closely, he doesn't look thin only because his stomach is a little distended, the lines on his forehead are deeper, the greyness under his skin a little more pronounced, his eyes a little more tired, a little more expressionless. If she had been a writer, she might have said his eyes were dead. She's not a writer, she's a cop, and she's seen that lack of expression in a hundred street people.

"Are you okay, Dad?"

"Yes, Katie. I'm fine." She knows that lying, deceptive _fine_. She's used it herself: never stops using it.

"Dad…" She doesn't know how to do this. Still, she's a cop. Interrogation is her speciality. _Treat this like a stranger._ "Dad," she says firmly, "the clinic called me. They said" – _a stranger, just a stranger, in Interrogation_ – "that the damage to your liver is worse. It might not get better. Dad, you have to _stop_." She clamps her teeth in her lip to stop the words pouring out of her: _Dad, stop drinking for me, please, see me, your daughter, I need you; I don't want you to die even if you do._ She knows that they won't work: he'll promise now, and he'll even mean it, but the craving will capture him and he won't even resist its chains dragging him down. Jacob Marley, as played by Jim Beckett.

Her father looks older, suddenly, defeated and tired and creased with his own failures. "Katie…" he trails off, not able to finish his sentence, not able, it seems, to finish his thought. No-one but her father calls her Katie, now. Even Castle has learned to call her Beckett, as she has resolutely called him Castle, and sealed away their past. The thought skitters through her mind that if her father does keep drinking then the only person in the whole wide world that she knows from her past will be Castle.

This is not necessarily reassuring: in fact, this is absolutely not reassuring at all. She doesn't want to have those shared memories; she's spent years suppressing them and the feelings behind them and now, just as she'd managed armed neutrality and civil conversation, just as she'd managed to convince herself that there was nothing there but a work-colleagues relationship, not even as close as with Ryan, (Esposito is a whole different ball game, they've been through hell together and they're closer than siblings) the too-near chance that he'll be the only reminder of the time when she had parents, plural, is bringing back other memories. Memories of a time when someone cared. Or possibly pretended well enough for it to be the same thing. Memories of a time when sparks skittered up and down her nerves; when the muscles deep in her body clenched though she was too young to act on it; when one large male holding her hand or putting his arm round her was enough to make the world right.

It was all so simple, then.

Now her mother is dead, her father is dying, and all of those memories, if not a lie, are tainted. And yet. And yet if she let it, if she didn't have this bigger problem to concern her, if her father wasn't an alcoholic, chasing suicide by bottle, she might remember how much it had meant, how their minds had matched, (their minds still match) how good it had been. She might allow herself to think that it could be that good again, or better.

She has no capacity to think like that: no time, too many closer issues to worry about. First her father, then the job. Maybe after that she might have time to think about anything else. She's got no reason to think that Castle will be any assistance to anything: a smart-mouthed, clever celebrity who's sometimes helpful on the job is not a help with anything else, and this can't be solved by hand-holding or hugs.

"Dad, please. You have to stop for good." She's said this so often before. It'll work, for a while. But her father looks so old, and tired, and ill; and she so desperately wants it all to be okay again. Ten years on, and she's still hoping for it all to be okay again.

She stays the afternoon, and they have soft drinks, and snacks – her father eats little, and she worries again – and talk about nothing more significant than the weather, and when in the evening she goes home, she's unreassured and unhappy.

* * *

A couple of days go by. Beckett focuses firmly on work and makes sure she calls her father each evening, ostensibly to hear about his day, actually to remind him to eat and that she's there.

Castle has shown up today in the expectation that he will absorb the bullpen atmosphere some more, and further in the hope that he can entice Beckett into an evening drink that doesn't involve Ryan, Esposito or pool tables. However, he is swiftly bored. Playing with his phone does not amuse him for long; the boys are not his primary character of interest, being relatively easy to convert into subsidiary characters; Esposito is regarding him rather darkly for no apparent reason; and the noise and bustle of the bullpen is not providing any new insight which he has not already absorbed in the last few days. And, of course, Beckett is lost in her own paperwork and her own world, just as she has been since Friday night.

He takes a surreptitious but close look. She looks tired – weary, in fact; dragged down: a taint that's been spreading since Friday night. Her walk and voice are almost as brisk as ever, but there's a heaviness behind it that is spilling over into her entire demeanour. Hmmm. Castle's busy brain begins to operate again. He's been careful, and civil, and detached. But. But Beckett had automatically turned her hand into his and then not taken it away – or not noticed it was there, possibly. But he thinks, or more likely hopes, that Beckett still feels something. But they've reached an easy accommodation of matching wits and theory and she is comfortable with him – professionally, anyway – and he hasn't used his knowledge of her home address to show up.

Maybe it's time he did.

* * *

_thank you to all readers and reviewers. Especially to Erin80, for correcting a timing error._


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: Wasted and wounded**

Castle spends the hour or so that's now all that's left of the afternoon considering his options and hoping that a body drops so that he has a semi-credible excuse for turning up at Beckett's apartment to ask questions. Then he realises that actually he doesn't want a body to drop, because then he'll be following her round and won't need to go to her apartment to ask questions, so he flips his mind-set by one-eighty degrees and starts considering the possible benefits of wine and/or cake.

He knows Beckett drinks wine. He doesn't know if she likes cake, though in his rather extensive experience cake or chocolate (or chocolate cake) tends to go down well with upset women. It works perfectly on his mother and daughter. Now he comes to think of it, he's not entirely sure what Beckett actually eats. He assumes she must do, but he can't actually say that he's noticed. (He never knew what she liked, or didn't like. He doesn't now.) He is not stupid enough to think that flowers are a good idea.

In the end he takes both wine, a good and unusual white Burgundy, and some rather over-decorated cupcakes from a newly fashionable bakery; and hopes that neither will end up over his head as he is allowed to enter by the doorman. (He still does not at all understand how Beckett can afford an apartment this expensive, including a doorman, on a cop's salary.) However, the doorman turns out to be a fan of Derrick Storm, and upon Castle signing the front of the book that is dragged out from his doorman's lair is very happy to let Mr Castle go up and see Miss Beckett. (Miss? And the doorman is still _alive?_)

Just as he's about to tap on the door he becomes aware of conversation within. He has a sudden doubt. What if Beckett has a (well-hidden) boyfriend? He eavesdrops shamelessly for a minute, but can't make out the words. What he can make out is the cadence and breaks of a phone call. He relaxes. It might have been a little difficult to pursue his aims with a boyfriend on the scene, though he can't imagine any boyfriend putting up with or surviving Beckett's work ethic. (He forgets that he always had. Then, he'd worked hard too.)

He raps smartly on the door, wine visible in front of him. With only a little luck… and indeed it is his lucky day. Beckett opens the door without necessarily having looked to see who's outside it, and he walks confidently in before she can object.

Oh.

Oh.

_That's_ why she didn't bother looking. Her hand is on her gun and the safety on the holster is unsnapped. It is quite unbelievably hot. _She_ is unbelievably hot. He shuts the door behind him. Her face relaxes marginally – ah. That's not relaxation. That's deciding that he's no threat and not particularly interesting. How… unflattering – and she resnaps the holster.

And then she turns away from him, picks her phone back up, and restarts the conversation, waving him to a seat some distance away. He's more than a little insulted. He doesn't sit down. He takes the wine and cakes to her kitchenette and without a by-your-leave opens the fridge and puts the wine in to cool down. The fridge is almost entirely empty. There's a pizza box, with a single slice missing when he peeks, some green stuff that might have been salad a week ago, and the wine he's just put there. That's it. He looks around the apartment. It's beautifully decorated: classic clean pale wooden furniture, pale cream walls, accent cushions on the darker cream couch and chair, paintings on the walls: no photographs in this room. Pale birch wood bookshelves, full of tidy rows of books. It's light, airy and tasteful: perfectly neat. It has as much personality and life as a glass of distilled water. If Beckett wasn't actually in it, he'd swear it was unoccupied. Maybe except for the books – at least they look as if they've been read.

"Dad, did you eat dinner?" Beckett has no right, on the basis of the contents of her fridge, to ask _anyone_ that question.

"What was it?" Castle's brain catches up, suddenly. _Dad_. Ah. She's talking to her father. Who he'd thought might be spending time in White Plains, given Beckett's recent strain. Obviously not. Day attendance? Not attending any more? Why on earth is she nagging her father about dinner?

"Okay. Do you want me to bring you over anything?"

"Okay. I'll call you tomorrow. See you Saturday." Beckett calls her father every night? Even Alexis doesn't call him, or vice versa, every night when he's touring, and she's a child. Or he is. (He calls Alexis every other night.)

The phone clicks off.

"Why are you here, Castle?" She doesn't sound irritated, or upset, or angry, or concerned – or interested. Her mind is clearly elsewhere. It's a very peculiar feeling. He's never ignored. He's never _not_ the centre of attention. Beckett, however, really isn't paying him much attention at all. He considers attracting her full attention in an unignorable way. Then he considers that her gun is still on her hip. Then he considers how much he's fucked up already by trying that route to getting Beckett's attention. Amazing. Sensible thought and _not_ instinctive reaction. He discounts the idea of kissing her. For the moment.

"I needed to ask some more questions. I brought some wine, as a down payment on the answers."

"Couldn't it have waited till tomorrow?" She sounds rather tired, as if talking to him is too much effort for this evening. She'd sounded like that in the cab on Friday night. She'd sounded like that in the precinct, under the brisk sharp tones.

"No. I need the answers before I can write any more." He smiles evilly. "You wouldn't want me to lack inspiration, would you?" She looks extremely sceptical. "I'd have to be around the precinct even more if I did."

"If it's like that, then, get on and ask. You're ubiquitous as it is. If you showed up any more often you'd be on first-name terms with the cockroaches. They're ubiquitous too."

"Ubiquitous. That's such a great word. It slithers over the tongue." He ignores the comment about the cockroaches, on the grounds that at least there's a glimmer of expression in her voice now, rather than the complete disinterest when he'd bounced in. "Have you got glasses and a corkscrew?"

"Bribing a cop is a felony, Castle."

"I'm not bribing you."

"Oh?" She raises a delicate eyebrow. It's astonishingly sexy. "You've brought an expensive" –

"How do you know that?" – she looks at him as if he's a complete idiot –

"bottle of wine in the hope of enticing answers out of me." With astounding control, Castle doesn't mention what _else_ he'd like to entice out of Beckett. Or into Beckett, to be precise. _Civility, Rick. Pouncing on her is not going to work. Probably._

"If you don't want wine then I brought cupcakes." Both eyebrows rise this time.

"You must really want those answers." _I do. But not the answers you're thinking I want_.

"Do you want any of my wine?" She shrugs.

"Why not? It'll be some compensation for having to answer yet more questions."

He turns back to the kitchenette.

"Where are you going?"

"I put the wine in the fridge."

"Fine. Glasses in the cupboard on the right. Corkscrew in the drawer." She's sat down on the couch, feet tucked up, in a way that screams unthinking habit. If she'd been thinking, she might not have done that, but it's clear from the renewed heaviness in her voice and posture that, brief flash of earlier snark notwithstanding, she's too tired to think, too. If she's so tired that she doesn't even seem to care that he's showed up, invaded her kitchen, and she's _letting_ him do as he chooses – this had better be run on a very different line than he had originally been contemplating.

While he's opening the wine, which fortunately he had mostly cooled before he came here, and finding her wine glasses, he contemplates the position, and the problem. He doesn't want to be some sort of work colleague that she's pals with but doesn't really care about. In addition, he doesn't want to be some one night stand, however that might blaze. With some disbelief, he realises that he wants to be – more than friends, be who they were, be who they could be again. Once upon a time, long ago and far away, he'd loved her; and he thinks that she had loved him. If he wants that back, though, he's going to have to work for it, because right now something is occupying her mind to the exclusion of everything else, and that is not a happy thought that she is thinking.

He carefully brings both wineglasses and the opened bottle to the low table in front of the couch, and returns to find the cupcakes, plates, a knife and some forks. When he brings them over, sets them out and pours both of them wine, Beckett manages a half-smile of automatic, absent thanks but refuses more than a third of a glass and a small piece of one cupcake. _Mice_ eat and drink more than that.

"Did you already eat dinner?"

"Yeah." Well, she'd eaten what she wanted to. She's not that hungry at the moment, worry about her father shrinking her gut. She eats because she has to, but beyond the amounts that are necessary it's dry in her mouth: too much effort on something that isn't presently important.

Castle sits down beside her. She notes with mildly content disinterest that he's left a civil distance between them, and assumes that his reasons for popping by are entirely work related. It's a bit weird that he's brought the modern equivalent of cakes and ale, but it's likely just a manifestation of good manners. She's certainly not in the mood for celebration. She swallows a morsel of the cake, and a sip of the wine.

"What do you want to know?"

"Tell me about how you get to be a detective, and how cops get promoted." She can do that. In terse bare prose appropriate to the factual subject, she runs through the main strands.

"Would you want to be a Lieutenant, or a Captain?"

"No." That reaction is wholly automatic and definite.

"Why not?" He'd have thought that she would have the same flaring ambition; that she would want to be a visible, imitable, success. (She'd wanted to be the first female Chief Justice.)

"Desk work. Politics. Brown-nosing and ass-kissing." She recognises the bitterness in her own voice. "Management." She, despite her efforts to lighten up, makes that sound like it's worse than torture. "Having to decide which case gets resources." _Stop talking, Kate_. But she doesn't. "Writing off cases as cold." She curls her feet more tightly under herself and, by main force, doesn't say anything more, instead taking another sip of wine which barely dampens her lips.

"Is that what happened?" Castle says, before he can prevent himself. He expects to be evicted almost before the question has left his larynx.

"Yeah," Beckett says flatly. He knows it all, anyway: guessed most, and she'd directed him to the cemetery, so what matter if she reveals that? His character can have a backstory if he so pleases, and she's too busy to care. When his arm moves she thinks he's reaching for his cake, or wine. Instead he reaches for her hand. Confidently, as if she won't refuse him; and the memory of the first time he'd ever done that surges up about her.

This is not that time. She's not that shy fourteen year old, and she's had occasional lovers since, almost been married once. Physical – sexual – connection doesn't scare her. The fire running up her arm, though, does. It's the same feeling as when _she_ first reached for _him_: the one that had changed everything and set her preferences in men and… and led her straight to her first broken heart and the first foundations of the walls that she built full height after that ghastly January evening and which have served her so very well ever since. Her hand lies lax, unresisting and unresponsive, under his, unmoving in the shock of the long-forgotten sensation. Castle, having paused for a beat, clearly thinks that this is acceptance, and takes the opportunity to slide a fraction closer – still separate – and to clasp her hand more closely, unconsciously – she hopes it's unconsciously – slipping his thumb over the heel of her palm, the fine transparent skin of her wrist.

"What else is wrong? You've been a little off your game since Friday." Her hand flexes under his, small indication that he's hit a nerve.

"Not your problem, Castle." No, but he wants her to be his problem, and he had begun in protecting her from her troubles. (It had been easy, then.) She's troubled now, and since under his external, PR-induced, public shell he has a mile-wide streak of protectiveness (maybe it's being a parent, maybe it's always been there) and, of course, a mile-wide streak of wanting Beckett back, he wants to help. Help is laced with a rather hefty core of feeling that it wouldn't take very much for hand-holding to turn into hugging.

"I'm a good listener." He's good at other things, too. Comforting hand-holding and protective hugs are two of them. Other forms of physical consolation are available on request.

"You never stop talking, Castle. How do you ever listen?" but there's no real bite in it. "It's not your concern."

"No, but I can listen if you want to talk. Safe ears. I'm not involved. Sometimes it's good just to talk to someone who's got no skin in the game." He's not exactly telling the truth, but he isn't lying either. Right now, he has no skin in this game, and he's not in any way involved. But he wants to be.

There's a long pause, during which Beckett, or even her hand under his, does not move at all.

"My dad is dying," she says harshly. It lies out there on the table, lead-heavy. There's another pause. "Now I've said it. Maybe he's not dying yet. They'll tell me in a couple of days. But if he isn't dying this time he will be next time. There will be a next time. There always is a next time, no matter how much he promises there won't be. He can't stay away from it. Every time he comes back from it a little older, a little more ill, a little more dead behind the eyes."

She's turned away from him, talking to the pale impersonal décor, the words spilling out as if they aren't hers at all. "He doesn't eat unless I remind him. He has to eat properly, but he doesn't." If the subject weren't so very serious, Castle might have thought _Pot, meet Kettle_. "If it weren't for the remains of the insurance he'd have had to sell his apartment to pay for the treatment. Maybe this time he will need to. I don't know. I don't know what it will cost him, or what his finances are. He won't discuss it. He could live here, in between treatments. If there is a treatment. I don't know yet. He might be too far gone. Maybe a transplant would work, but there's no point if he can't stop drinking." She pulls her hand away, moves to the window and stares out blindly into the twilight.

"I'm Kate Beckett, and my dad's an alcoholic," she says into the gathering night. There's no hope in her dead, drifting words, and Castle, whose attention to small clues of voice and intonation has been sharpened by eleven years of parenthood, is moving almost before she's finished the final word, spinning her into him and holding her without any thought other than comfort; arms enclosing her and her head tucked into his shoulder.

It takes him a moment to realise that she's not crying. He'd expected crying, simply from experience and tone. She's just said out loud that her father is dying of alcohol abuse and she's not crying. Nor, he becomes aware, is she leaning on him. Her lean body is strung taut, no hint that she might need support. (She'd never asked for support.) The only reason that she's close in against him is that he pulled her there, an instinctive reaction to her pain.

She doesn't need him. Perhaps she never had needed him. But no-one can go through this alone – can they? And she might not need him but she hasn't pushed him away. He pats her consolingly on the back and drops his arms – and just for a short moment she moves closer as if there's something that she _can_ take from him.

And then she steps away.

"Thank you," she says neutrally. "Sorry you had to put up with that." Her drawbridge is up, the portcullis down, the keep of her self-control reinforced, the half-instant of almost-need gone as if it had never existed.

"No problem. I said I'd listen." He waggles his ears, and raises a slightly surprised quirk of smile.

"You can waggle your ears?"

"Yep. Cute trick." He waits half a beat. "But don't think you know me." The smile opens a little further. That worked. He goes back to the couch and sits down, nibbling on his cake. He picks up the wine, then, remembering her words and slightly ashamed of himself for even suggesting it, puts it down again.

"It's okay, Castle. You can pour some more wine." He must have shown some surprise, though he truly doesn't remember it. "What? I am not my father." _No. You certainly are not._

He pours, and somewhat to his surprise Beckett returns to sit in her corner of the couch, takes a few sips and eats a few tiny bites of cupcake. She's almost made it to eating as much as a whole nuclear family of mice. He takes her hand again, as if he has a right to do so, as if there's no doubt that she'll allow it. (It had worked before, eventually.) She doesn't argue, and after a small surprised space she turns her hand over in the way she always had. He can still feel the tense misery of a moment ago in the shape of her fingers, but when he looks at her face there are still no tears. Her control is terrifying. (Her control had been terrifying for the week before she tore him apart and shut the door in his face.)

There's no talking. Beckett's hand stays under his, but doesn't in any way at all request or imply the possibility for more, and even Castle's normal chutzpah is defeated by the depth of her other issues. On the other hand, the silence is supportive not argumentative, and when the wine is done, still in this strangely reassuring quiet, and Castle stands to go, he feels he's made some progress.

So he doesn't try to resist his impulse to hug her again, before he opens the door, nor the swiftly following desire to peck her on the cheek, both of which would have been perfectly sensibly bearable.

It's the kiss after that that was a mistake.

* * *

_Thank you to all readers, reviewers and those who have followed and favourited._

_I am suffering with some evil bug. If I have missed anyone who has reviewed today/last night, I'm sorry._


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: Love over gold**

He should have known that kissing Katie Beckett again in _any_ fashion, even a peck on the cheek, was a really, really dumb idea. Because now he's back, instantly and idiotically, to thinking of her as his Katie who he could kiss as if she belonged to him, as if she'd always belong to him. He'd only just cured himself of that. It's simply that he'd gathered her into a hug and then he'd bent down a little because she's barefoot and pecked her on the cheek but then – he'd lost it. Only because of her nearness and the feeling of her in his arms and the mile wide protective streak towards her that he's never really lost even though she doesn't appear to need protected from anything at all and she has a gun – and he kissed her all over again just like he did when he asked her to prom: protective and possessive and passionate all together.

Which was just plain downright dumb.

Except that she hasn't killed him yet. Yet being quite _definitely_ the operative word in that sentence. She's not exactly passionately responding to him either. He hauls himself away with considerable difficulty.

"I'm sorry."

"No, you're not."

"I am. I didn't mean to do that." There's a very odd expression in Beckett's eyes, as if she hadn't expected that statement.

"So you're sorry that you kissed me?"

"Yes." There's an almost imperceptible wince. That was the wrong answer. "No!" Another tiny wince. How can that be wrong too? She raises cool eyebrows at his incoherence.

"I think you should go home, Castle. Sleep off the wine. Don't come to the precinct if you have a hangover. It's really not a good idea to be in the bullpen while suffering the morning after." She almost sounds sympathetic. She opens the door, politely, and sees him out the door with a small, closed, buttoned-up smile, set on her closed, buttoned-up face and her closed, buttoned-up posture. As the door shuts behind him he has the uncomfortable feeling that he's mis-stepped. The only problem is that he doesn't know if the mis-step was kissing her or stopping.

Safely behind her closed door, Beckett looks at the crumbs of cake and the smear of too-rich frosting and the dregs of wine in the bottle and glasses. And then she sits back down with a thump and starts to weep soundlessly as the whole disaster that her world is becoming falls in on top of her.

Her father is an alcoholic and inevitably, unstoppably, he's heading towards death, hand-in-hand with Jack Daniels and Jim Beam. He doesn't care enough for her to stop. He never has. She _knows_ that this is the wrong way to think, she's been to Al-Anon: it's not that he doesn't care, it's that it's the disease – but right now she can't go through the exercise of resetting the thought pattern. It hurts too much and it's all far too real and she has another two days to get through before she'll know the whole truth.

She hates not knowing the worst even more than she will hate knowing the worst. She always hates not knowing the answers. Which thought brings her to the other looming disaster. Castle. Rick-fucking-I-still-want-you-Castle. She doesn't have _time _for this. She doesn't have headspace for this. Her father is _dying_ and trying to stop that is the only thing she has any time for outside the job. And yet Rick Castle has blown all of that apart by showing up and bringing cakes and wine and _listening_ and holding her hand and cuddling her in a very comforting manner and getting her back to some form of calm before she lost it in front of him. And then he went and _kissed _her in a way that resonates into her bones as not even Will had managed. (It's fifteen years since she's been kissed in any way even close to that.)

But no matter how much it might have felt so very good in different circumstances, there's no point. Sex doesn't cure grief, she knows that, it only hides it. Especially when you're grieving in advance. She hadn't even reacted. A week ago, even Thursday, if he'd kissed her like that she'd have dragged him into her bedroom and stripped him naked, pretence of neutrality and truce or not, and showed him what they could be. Because over the last month or so, he'd simply _stopped pushing_ and cast off his superstar status and arrogance and been once again the boy – man – with a mind to match hers, the one she'd held hands with and kissed. They'd been tentatively starting to be friends again, even if she hadn't admitted it to anyone including herself: because it's all still there: everything that there once was, only now she's all grown up and knows exactly what it means.

But right now there's no point, and no time, and no space, and no real interest. He can help with the cases and be there at work and that is it. He can't help with this. He can't save her father, she can't save her father: only her father can save her father. Well. It's not at all true that there's no interest, but she wouldn't have her heart in it: it would only be a filler, something to take her mind off the bigger issue. That's no way to play. That's just using someone, and she won't do that. It would work, she's sure of that, but it's not fair.

The slow tears trickle down her cheeks while her mind snaps back to the bigger issue. What is she going to be able to do about her father? He could stay with her: her mother's legacy bought her a two-bedroom apartment, though the second is quite small. That way she'd be able to ensure he ate (she ignores the irony) and didn't drink. She could get Lanie to keep her bottles, or drink them first, to drown her sorrow. She thinks suddenly, bitterly, that her father living with her would be rather restrictive. No ability to invite friends round for a drink, and no ability to invite a lover round. If she had one, of course. Which presently is extremely unlikely. She likes her own space, and she'd have to give it up.

But it's her father, and she can't fail to do everything she can for him. Tomorrow, she'll make a list of possibilities. She can't think straight now, through the shock of frankly admitting the possible outcomes. She'll simply go to bed, and hope that sleep will help her organise herself.

* * *

"Yo, Beckett, what'cha doin' there?" She's been staring at a sheet of paper and chewing the end of her pen for twenty minutes, and Esposito's noticed.

"Thinking, Espo," she retorts sharply. "You should try it sometime." Esposito raises an eyebrow.

"You get outta bed the wrong side this morning, Beckett?" It's rare for Espo to call her out. She looks up.

"Sorry. Yeah. Late night." Esposito looks a little more carefully at her. Late night seems an understatement. Or a face-saving lie.

"What's his name?" That's an interesting reaction. Beckett clearly saw someone last night. That little twitch of her eye – Espo's only seen that tell when she's about to be evasive; normally when she's avoiding an order that she thinks she won't like or she's about to do something dumb.

"What're you implying, Espo? I don't go in for one-night stands." She forces an evil grin and attacks. "You can get help for that if it's how you roll, you know." Esposito splutters a bit at the implication and performs a tactical retreat from that line of interrogation.

"What's up, Beckett? C'mon. You've been staring at a blank sheet all morning. It's not even like it's your murder board."

"I'm fine, Espo. Just thinking." She looks back at the paper, which is providing her with no help at all.

"Hey," Castle's arrived with his usual brightly happy noise and fuss. Beckett starts. Esposito looks at the tiny flicker of expression that runs across her face and decides instantly that whatever is wrong, Castle has something to do with it. Or at the very least, knows more than Espo does. Which is just out of order. He, Espo, has Beckett's back, not some blow-in celebrity who hasn't known Beckett for more than five minutes and hasn't been down in the mud and the blood with her. Okay, he's shown respect for the last month or so, but Esposito hasn't forgotten what Ryan had said and he thinks it's time for Big Brother to come out to play. He hasn't had a chance to intimidate anyone for a whole week and he's missing it. Why, he'll get out of practice soon. And Castle should have done plenty enough research by now. He's not needed, causing trouble and upsetting Beckett and disrupting the team.

"Hey, Castle."

"Yo, Castle."

"Morning, Castle" – that's Ryan, who's as enthusiastically star struck as ever. Esposito scowls blackly at him and notes Ryan's automatic small wince with unworthy satisfaction. He makes a small, discreet but emphatic gesture toward the break room and follows Ryan's trot inside.

"What's with Beckett and Castle?" he starts. Ryan looks confused.

"What about Beckett and Castle?"

"What's goin' on?"

"Nothing, far's I know."

"You spent Friday bein' Miss Matchmaker" – Ryan grimaces – "so what'cha think you've done?"

"Nothing. 'S been just the same as last week. You're imagining things." Ryan is unimpressed by Esposito's line of thought. "Espo, are you thinking that it's time to talk to him?" The emphasis on _talk_ makes it clear what Ryan means. " 'Cause he hasn't done anything at all that you can object to."

"He knows something about what's wrong. Even if he didn't cause it." Espo's scowl is still black.

"Oh. You mean he knows something you don't and you're still on this kick of he don't belong here like you were last week?"

Espo opens his mouth to rip Ryan into ground beef. Then he shuts it again. Then he looks very, very embarrassed.

"Yeah," he mutters, in a very defensive voice indeed. "We got her back."

"Espo, it would take a whole platoon to cover Beckett's back. One more to help isn't gonna change matters here. Just 'cause you behave like you're her big brother don't mean that we can't all get along. You got your head up your ass about this and it's not like you. What's your problem? You didn't do shit like this when I joined. You didn't do shit like this when he first showed up a month ago."

"You're a cop. He's not. He don't belong. He's been hangin' around here long enough." Ryan looks carefully at Espo.

"That's _it_? We're cops and he's not? For Chrissake, Espo. Thought you were better than that. Get your stupid head out your stupid ass." Ryan leaves Esposito with a look which scrapes right down Esposito's bones. Ryan just looked at him like he was an idiot. What's worse, he's right. But Esposito, not a man who normally stays in contact with his touchy-feely side, doesn't have to like it when it's stretched out in front of him. He glares ferociously at the coffee machine. He really doesn't like the feeling that he's acting like a jealous kid whose best friend is off with some new kid in the playground, and Ryan's just called him on that behaviour. Fuck. He'd better go to the gym tonight. Some hard work and sweat is just what he needs to sort his shit out. He makes and drains his coffee and makes another, losing the ferocious scowl along the way. Still, shit sorted or not, he's not having Castle knowing something that upsets Beckett without him and Ryan knowing it too. Even if Ryan's right and it takes all three of them to cover her back. He's not going to make it easy on Mr-Rich-Writer-Casanova there.

It hasn't occurred to Espo, or for that matter to Ryan, that Castle might not be a pushover; and it certainly hasn't occurred to either of them that he might have known Beckett before he showed up in the Tisdale case. The other thing that hasn't occurred to the pair of them, and should have, is that Beckett is not going to appreciate them prying into something that's none of their business. To wit, anything that she doesn't choose to tell them directly. Ragging and jokes about what she, or anyone, gets up to off-duty is one thing, and she can and does dish that out and take it with the best of them. But her private life is off-limits, and considering that all the boys have ever known about the Fed is that she was with one, whom they met in passing if he picked her up from the bullpen, it got pretty serious, and then they broke up, they really ought to know that.

Beckett has got no further in covering the blankness of her paper than she had in the two hours before anyone else showed up. Sleep would have been helpful, but around 5 a.m. it had become clear that any more of the broken nightmares would have been even more disturbing than the previous five hours of them had been, so she'd come in to try and do some thinking when the bullpen was dead quiet. Her face contorts briefly. That was not a good choice of phrase. And now everyone is here and Esposito is suspicious, which she can do without, which means that Ryan will shortly also be suspicious, which she can also do without, and Castle is sitting next to her and regarding the blank sheet of paper with unconcealed interest. When his gaze moves from the paper to the chewed end of the pen to her face, the interest becomes laced with curiosity and concern.

"Thinking of embarking on a career as a writer, Beckett?" is all he says, however, in his normal bouncy tones.

"Yeah. If you can make money from it, I'm sure I can." Castle takes on the aspect of an aggrieved turkey, blowing out his cheeks and trying to wobble his wattles, which has no effect on Beckett at all. Especially as Castle has no jowls, let alone wattles.

"Writing requires talent. Dedication. Hard work." Beckett's mobile cynicism generator, otherwise known as her left eyebrow, rises slowly.

"Which of those attributes are you claiming to possess, Castle?" He looks artistically wounded.

"All of them, of course."

"You spend all your time here. How is that dedication or working hard on your writing?"

"I notice you didn't question my possession of talent, Beckett." He grins triumphantly. "I knew you were a fan." She growls, not unpleasantly. The familiar banter is a huge improvement on the blank sheet of paper. "Being here is serious research. That's hard work and dedication right there." He reaches for her sheet of paper, folds it a few times apparently randomly, and presents her with a little origami bird that – he demonstrates with childlike enthusiasm – flaps its wings when he pulls its tail.

"Thank you," says Beckett dryly. "Was that dedication or hard work?" She looks a touch irritated. "Now what am I supposed to write on?"

"Wow, the city really must be broke. No more paper?"

"Sure it's broke, Castle. That's why they let you come and play cop. Can't afford a real one, and you do it for nothing."

Castle splutters, then acquires a happy grin. "You said I do a cop's job. I _knew_ you liked me." On the other side of the room, Esposito humphs. Ryan throws him a warning look.

The rest of the morning passes far too slowly. Beckett has apparently sidestepped the budgetary constraints and found another sheet of paper, which remains as blank as the first, while occasionally paying some attention to a cold case file of minimal information and maximal boredom. Esposito is tenderly cossetting the black cloud of his atrocious mood, Ryan is reviewing surveillance footage and complaining about the lack of information, and Castle is playing with his phone and sneaking glances at Beckett, who is yawning at every other sentence in the file.

At lunchtime Beckett claims that she has errands to run and no company is needed or wanted. Castle doesn't comment on the fact that she's taken the paper and a pen with her, and wanders off to pursue his own interests for a while. He hasn't missed Esposito's vicious stare at him, nor the slight constraint between Esposito and Ryan. He feels that it might be safer to be out the way while he works out how to handle this. He can sense a _discussion_ heading for him, and he'd rather have that later on than now. Ruins the digestion, conflict before lunchtime.

Beckett is lurking in a small booth in a greasy diner some way from the precinct, in which she is unlikely to be discovered though the likelihood of salmonella poisoning might betray her tomorrow, and miserably scribbling down all the thoughts which have occurred to her. She doesn't like any of the options, and she doesn't think that her father will either, but there really are only three: he stays where he is and she spends all her time over there when she isn't actually working or sleeping; he comes to live with her; or he goes into residential rehab. Then there's the cost of his treatment, on top of residential rehab. She'll need to find out about that. She'll need to ask her dad (she could use her power of attorney, but that seems very…final) how he's funding it this time, or next time. If there is a next time. Her face twists, and her lips pinch, and she doesn't cry. Not before she goes back to the precinct. She returns to her thoughts and her scribblings.

The afternoon passes very much as the morning has. Beckett, astonishingly, disappears one second after the end of shift, before anyone can even say goodbye. Castle, deprived of any chance of protection, has no option but to bite the not-quite-literal bullet (though Esposito's expression renders its imaginary quality a little doubtful) and invites both detectives for a drink. Pool, he says, is optional; beer, or other alcoholic drinks, is not.

Castle and Ryan open a discussion about Ryan's previous roles as a cop, and Castle is flatteringly interested in his work in Narcotics and undercover roles. Esposito stays festering in the corner until the second round is sunk, when he gradually condescends to get involved in the conversation and admits to his Special Forces past. Castle doesn't show by a whisker that that single statement has told him everything he needs to know about Esposito's relationship with Beckett. Brothers in arms. Well, siblings. So that's why Espo looks at him with black suspicion and not a little jealousy. He, Castle, has come in and been assigned to be Beckett's shadow, and Espo doesn't think he's capable of protecting her (Espo is dead wrong about that, but that can wait) and is not a little annoyed that he's been side lined. He wonders with some small amusement, heavily hidden, how soon Esposito will start on, undoubtedly barely veiled, threats. Oh well, he's dealt with plenty brothers and fathers. He _is_ a father, and he knows exactly how to deal with any boy smooching up to Alexis. Not that he's needed to, yet, but he's been practising.

It really doesn't take much longer for Esposito to thump his forearms on to the table, lean forward in his best interrogation style and open with both barrels.

"What'cha do to Beckett?"

* * *

_Thank you to everyone for your reading, reviews and good wishes. _

_Contrary to my expectations yesterday, I am not yet dead. Therefore my inimitably irritating cliffhanger style is likely to continue._


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: The man's too strong**

"Nothing," says Castle, equally bluntly, and shuts his mouth. He's not going to get into a pissing contest with Esposito, especially over Beckett. Whatever he _wants_, he doesn't have her, doesn't own her, and in fact doesn't even have the slightest hint of a relationship with her, kiss last night excepted.

"So what's wrong with her?" This is going to be tricky. Lying to two-thirds of the top detective team in the city is likely to be difficult, not to say impossible. Betraying Beckett's secrets, however, is a complete non-starter. She's still not sure that he didn't betray her once already, and he's not putting his very limited gains at risk.

"She doesn't talk about anything much to me." Which is perfectly true, and totally misleading.

"So why'd she look like hell this morning?" Castle shrugs.

"No idea." Plenty speculation, but no actual knowledge. His knowledge is all why she looked miserable the previous night. Another true and misleading – should that be truly misleading or truthfully misleading? – statement. "I didn't see her today till I came by the precinct." Esposito glares.

"You took her home Friday."

"I shared a cab with her Friday," Castle corrects. "Beckett got dropped off at her door. I went on home after she went inside."

"You made sure she got inside?" Ryan sounds unflatteringly surprised that Castle had done that.

"My mother brought me up well," Castle says lightly. "Not that my mother carries a gun, thank God, but she'd never accept someone carrying a gun as an excuse for bad manners. I didn't dare get out the cab, though. Beckett would have shot me just for the implication." Both detectives nod understandingly. It's the first sign of softening from the implacable Esposito. Neither of them seem to realise that Castle has managed to imply without telling them anything that he hadn't laid a finger on Beckett. (Which he hadn't, because holding her hand in the cab really didn't count.) Now, just as long as they don't ask any other questions about when he'd _last_ seen her, he might get out of the lions' den alive.

Another round of beer interrupts the cadence and rhythm of interrogation. So far, it's been relatively civilised. Castle is not precisely convinced that this will continue.

"Why're you here, Castle?" Esposito is back on a different tack.

"Beer's good," he smiles placidly.

"Why are you still hanging around the Twelfth?" Esposito says blackly. Ryan gives a _what-can-you-do_ shrug, and keeps his head out of the line of fire. He'd tried to haul Espo's head out his ass, but it clearly didn't work. He really doesn't understand why Espo's on this kick. He'd been mostly fine with Castle right up till Friday night.

"Research."

"Yeah, right. You expect us to believe that? You ain't researching the NYPD, you're tryin' to research your way into Beckett's pants."

"It's not working, then. She's got as much interest in me as she does in the contents of your trashcan." Flat denial would be stupid. And a lie, though the crudity annoys him. He's trying to _research_ his way back into Beckett's life in a different way from that. Though the end product might be the same, that's not the whole of what he wants. Not by a long way.

" 'S never stopped you before."

"Don't believe what you read on page six, Esposito." Castle's tone is very slightly edged. He's been warned off by better motivated men than Espo, though none previously who were actually fondling their gun at the time, but he is not putting up with that implication.

"So that wasn't you signing every pair of tits that wagged at you?"

"Only the ones that asked me to." Ryan winces. Castle carries on, in a harder tone. "Note the _asked me_ part of that. Are you implying something else?" He's looking Esposito straight in the eye, and to Ryan's amazement it's Esposito who backs down and drops his eyes.

"No, man. We're good." Castle nods once, sharply.

"I know you two have got Beckett's back. I'm not interfering with that. But if _she_ thinks it's okay for me to shadow her, or Captain Montgomery allows it, then that's not on you." Another hard look hits straight between Esposito's eyes. "Is it?"

Ryan watches with amazement as Esposito drops his eyes again and nods. He, Ryan, had _no idea_ that anyone was capable of intimidating Esposito: certainly not the easy-going, rather childish Castle. Hidden depths and all that.

"If you" – Esposito starts. Castle raises his eyebrows and produces another hard stare. Esposito stutters to a halt.

"You don't have to like me. Just remember that I've got a daughter and I know how I would want her treated." Castle stops there, letting the implications hang in the air. There's a short, forbidding silence as he finishes his beer and clacks the empty bottle down on the table.

"Want another, Castle?" Esposito says. It's an apology, and acceptance.

"Sure."

Conversation passes to sports and similarly neutral topics, for a while, though the evening is anything but prolonged. Still, the air is cleared.

* * *

Castle exits the bar and decides that a brisk walk might relieve his still-high annoyance levels. He thinks he's a bit past being called on his behaviour by people who have no right to do so, especially when he has done nothing for which to be called out. He turns for home, and realises, without enormous surprise, that a brisk walk home will entail a brisk walk almost past Beckett's door. Once he's thought the idea, he can't get rid of it. More accurately, he doesn't try. So when he reaches the cross-street he turns into it, looks up and spots light at what he's fairly sure is one of her windows, and makes his way to her door.

The doorman remembers him, and regards him with a slightly indulgent but oddly assessing glance. Tonight, however, he politely asks Castle to wait and calls up. Castle thinks this is mildly peculiar, when last night he was waved straight on through. Mild peculiarity turns to worry when the doorman puts the phone down.

"Sorry, Mr Castle, Miss Beckett is busy tonight. She says she'll see you tomorrow." Castle is nonplussed. He doesn't argue, though. He smiles and shrugs.

"Thanks," he says, and leaves.

Outside, he considers whether to call Beckett, and swiftly rejects the idea. If she didn't want to see him in person, she isn't likely to want to speak to him on the phone either. He wanders homeward, pondering. She'd been distracted and elusive all day: missing at lunchtime, gone immediately on end of shift, which is unheard of. And of course, last night she'd stated flatly that her father might be dying. He concludes that she's thinking over that, and concludes further that pushing her is, yet again, a fundamentally bad idea, though he really thinks that she could use some support and comfort, preferably from him, though he'd accept it if he thought she'd take support from anything.

Still, he can't force her to accept help, and, it dawns on him, it's actually not as if she knows him well. She used to know him. That was fifteen years ago, and it didn't end well. She doesn't know who he might be at all, now. A little over a month of armed truce isn't really very long, set against a bad history and fifteen years of gap. He needs to remember that he doesn't know her well, either, and that constantly turning up at her door (well, at the exit of the library) might have been okay in high school but is likely to achieve a restraining order or being named as a stalker now. Neither is an attractive outcome.

* * *

Beckett had gone home immediately after the end of shift to try to sort out what she might do about her father and to worry herself into splinters over the news that tomorrow might bring. On the way in, she'd had a quiet word with her doorman to the effect that for the rest of this week she didn't want any visitors without a warning, blaming it on a need to sort out her bills because murder's been so high that she hasn't had a moment and she'll likely get her phone cut off if she doesn't get it together. (The doorman smiles in sympathy at that. He sees her hours.) Her list of options is not increasing, but her terror of the outcome is expanding by the moment. She manages to squash it down long enough to be able to call her father and sound sufficiently normal that he doesn't really notice that anything is wrong. He is, at least, sober.

Whether that will still be the case after tomorrow is, of course, another matter entirely.

It's entirely likely that when he receives the news he will take the easy option: drown his sorrows or his memories or his knowledge and thereby accelerate the outcome down the irreversible track to dying. The bitter tears slide unwanted and unstopped down her face. Her only hope is that the news is miraculously good, and the chance of that is very limited. Even if it were good this time, that luck can't continue for long. Commiseration or celebration: one way or another her father will eventually share it with Jim Beam and Jack Daniels. She puts a small lamp on, makes some coffee, has a slice of last night's pizza, reheated. None of it helps, or stops the tears.

When the doorman rings up she knows that it will be Castle, pulling the same trick as in high school, with more reason to believe that she might be receptive at least to his company. She can't bear to see anyone, and tells the doorman so. When there's silence, and peace, and her phone doesn't ring, she is merely, wholly, relieved that no-one will see her collapse.

Her evening does not improve. No matter how she tries to turn her mind to her book, or a movie, or even, in absolute desperation, to Desperate Housewives, (ugh) it doesn't work. She draws herself a scaldingly hot bath with a large dose of scented relaxant, which likewise singularly fails to improve matters. It occurs to her that if she had wanted distraction, she should have allowed Castle to come up. She knows he's well-read and well-travelled. She could have had someone to talk to where she would have been able to steer the conversation to subjects where she would have needed to concentrate: and if she were concentrating on that she wouldn't have been thinking increasingly morbid thoughts and barely stopping herself weeping yet more.

Well, she hadn't invited him up. And since when he had come by she had been pathetically tearful and quite unable to stop herself, that was likely a good choice. Based on last night (and on long-past history) Castle's instant, instinctive reaction to upset or unhappiness is to provide physical solace in the form of all-enveloping embraces. Last night that idea barely paused for breath before altering to something a lot more incendiary. Castle might have apologised for that, but it had _definitely_ taken two to tread that tango; not to mention that she thinks his apology had had much to do with his timing and very little to do with the action itself. Right now, that would be a step into insanity that would do nothing but add huge complications to her already-overly complicated life. And, of course, she would be using Castle as a hiding place, a way for her not to face up to all the troubles her father's disease is inflicting on her.

A half-assed, half-hearted, foot firmly out the door booty call relationship is not what she needs or wants. Since she's also not in any sort of a place even to think about anything better, and despite the instant physical connection and his reassuringly civil, largely unpushy behaviour over the last few weeks, she is still extremely wary of Castle's feelings and motives; that means _no_ relationship.

She'll simply have to deal. At least at work she can put her personal problems to one side. It won't be the first time she's thrown herself into work to forget some other unhappiness. She's had plenty practice. She's been doing so since she was thirteen and started high school a year early, after all. And tomorrow, she'll know the hard truth, and can start to make decisions and take action.

* * *

Beckett wakes often and, as on the previous day, eventually surrenders to unpleasant reality and rises from her tangled bedclothes. She's in the bullpen long before her favourite coffee-shop opens, while the dawn is still washing over the streets with clean light. It's going to be a beautiful day.

By the time Ryan and then Espo have both rolled in, there is a pile of papers on each of their desks and a detailed list of actions for each of them to take. Beckett is already on her third cup of double-strength coffee and it's still only eight-thirty. She is drilling into her paperwork pile faster than Exxon-Mobil into a new oil field, and neither man thinks it sensible to interrupt her.

When Montgomery arrives, not long after, he glances around the bullpen and clocks everything without obviously observing anything. He notes the aura of clawing tension engulfing Beckett and wonders whether this is a problem that should be dealt with at his desk or in a bar. It reminds him nastily of those very early days, shortly before he'd hauled Beckett out of Archives and the abyss of her mother's case. He enters his office in a rather less cheerful mood than he had entered the bullpen. The meteorological weather may be wonderful, but there seem to be storms coming in here.

Beckett buries herself in old, cold cases and paperwork, and tries not to stare at her phone: willing it to ring and not to ring in equal proportions. The average time she's spent not-staring has reduced as the morning has worn on, and by ten-thirty she's looking at it every minute, down from once every ten minutes when she got in.

By eleven-thirty, when Beckett's phone has remained obdurately silent and she has consumed another three extra-strong coffees without any apparent effect, she's given up on achieving anything except staring at papers and making lists of actions she can take when she can concentrate. For the first time that she can ever remember, work is not helping. She wonders whether it wouldn't simply be better to ask Montgomery for the rest of the day off, but at least here there is more to do than sit on her couch, to stare at her silent phone and at her navel in even proportions.

When her phone does finally ring, she disappears to the stairwell as she answers it. This call won't need an audience, and her team can't help her trap this killer.

"Miss Beckett?"

"Detective. Detective Beckett."

"Detective. I'm sorry. Detective Beckett, we would like to see your father again this afternoon, if possible. And you, too. If not today, tomorrow."

Beckett's voice is sharp as she reacts to the implications. She needs information. Evidence. "What are my father's chances?"

"Mi – Detective Beckett, it will be easier if you attend with your father and we can explain everything then." She doesn't need to ask the next question, but she can't stop herself: slow motion crash landing.

"He's not going to get better, is he? You're going to tell me there's nothing more you can do for him."

"Detective Beckett, you need to attend and speak to the hepatology" – she makes a questioning noise – "liver specialist - clinicians." It's clear she won't get any more information until they show up at the hospital.

Beckett is not yet sure where this leaves her. Her father is currently able to live on his own, but who knows how long that will last? The only thing that is clear is that she has to get herself and her dad round to Presbyterian, stat. It's looking pretty bleak. In her experience, demands by doctors that you show up in short order – and before they will tell you anything you have to be there in person – generally mean that you won't like what they're going to tell you. She takes a few moments in the restroom to compose herself – it's only been a couple more since she took the call – and then goes to see her captain.

"Sir, do you have a moment?" Montgomery looks up, surprised. Beckett doesn't normally ask for interviews.

"Sure, Detective. Come in." Beckett shuts the door behind her, and Montgomery takes a swift, discreet glance over her. Something is wrong.

"Sir, may I take the rest of the day off, please?" Montgomery looks straight at her, questions rising in his face. She speaks again before he can ask anything. "I need…" – she pauses, breathes once, deeply, restarts – "I have to take my dad to the hospital this afternoon and he can't go himself," she rushes out. Montgomery's questioning look changes to sympathy.

"Of course, Detective." He thinks for a second. "If you tell me if you need to take him again, we'll try to work your shifts around it." He knows that it must be serious, and that it explains the earlier atmosphere. Beckett never takes random time off, and never asks. He has to force her to take her vacation days. So because of that, he can cut her quite a lot of slack. Ryan and Esposito are perfectly capable of covering for her for a little time. After that, he'll need to work out something a bit more formal. She's still standing at formal parade rest, stiff and strained. "Okay. You get going now. We'll cope just fine without you." It sounds brusque, if you're not a cop. Beckett understands it as it's meant. _We got your back. Take the time you need to._

"Thank you, sir. I'll keep you informed."

Five minutes later she's almost packed up.

"Where ya goin', Beckett?" She can't face telling the boys. Her private life is not their business and she can't handle anyone's sympathy right now. She summons all her acting ability.

"Urgent appointment with my hairdresser. Life-threatening case of split ends," she quips, picks up her purse and is gone before Esposito works out that she's sold him a pup. Hair, and the dressing of hair, is not his specialist subject. Ryan just shrugs.

Ten minutes later, Castle appears, casts a swift glance around, which is considerably less discreet than Montgomery's, and only mostly conceals his disappointment at the lack of any trace of Beckett. His surprise is not concealed at all.

"Hey," he says. "Where's Beckett?"

"Just left," Esposito states. "Didn't say why."

"Claimed a split ends hair emergency," Ryan says mischievously. "I'm sure that means more to you than to Espo." Castle automatically pats his hair, but he's not going to be caught out like that.

"I don't have split ends," he notes, and then assumes a faked expression of horrified sympathy. "Beckett has split ends? Tragedy! Poor Beckett. I should recommend her my products." He looks at the boys. "Does that mean there are no new cases."

"Nope. Paperwork day today. You can help, if you like. Nice quiet Friday."

"No thanks." Castle doesn't bother to hide his disappointment at the lack of corpses. "None? No new bodies?"

"No. An' I'm glad of that, even if you ain't. You shouldn't be wishing people dead."

"I'll go home, then. Paperwork is not inspiring."

"Yeah, we all know what your inspiration is," Espo says sarcastically.

"The story round the case," Castle interjects before Esposito can really get going on that theme. "If you've not got a case I'm off. Can't waste my genius on paperwork." He's pursued to the lift by the very unimpressed sounds of Ryan and Esposito.

His departure is dogged by unease. He can only think of one reason that Beckett has left before lunchtime, or indeed seven pm. He certainly wouldn't have expected her to tell him, though he wishes she would, but if she needs a friendly ear he can provide it. He swithers for a moment or two, then taps out a text to that effect.

* * *

_Thank you to everyone reading, reviewing and following/favouriting. I very much appreciate it._


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13: A walk-on part in the war**

Beckett and her father had travelled to Presbyterian in fearful silence. They travel back in unalloyed misery. Beckett can't speak past the lump in her throat, and is calling on all her training and experience in order not to have to pull over because she can't see the road clearly. Her father, who can't drive because Beckett had forcibly removed his licence from him some time ago, has no reason to stay unemotional at all.

"We'll go back to mine," Beckett chokes out. "I don't want to be on my own, Dad." Truthfully, she's mainly thinking that if he comes back with her she can keep him safe until tomorrow: safe from solo temptation and the abyss that he's ready to leap into. She'd much rather be alone right now, investigating the bottom of a glass of bourbon. _One_ glass. She is never going to follow her father.

She can't leave him to his own company two hours after he's been told that the next time he comes off the wagon it will likely trigger liver failure. He already has very severe liver damage, and it won't take much, apparently, for that to be fatal.

It's not till she has gone to buy some food, taking her father with her, as she can't and won't leave him on his own in her apartment, (she has wine, and a bottle of whiskey) made a dinner for them both that doesn't come in Styrofoam and does have a relatively balanced nutritional content, then installed her father in her small spare bedroom; that Beckett even has a chance to check her phone. She is first astonished, and then unreasonably comforted, by Castle's undemanding message. It's one very tiny point of light in a very dark day.

She performs her night-time routine on autopilot, and exhaustedly collapses into bed; searching for comfort, or oblivion, in her pillows. A short time later, though, it's clear that emotional exhaustion doesn't bring sleep. She sits up and reaches for her book, and on realising that it's _Storm Fall_, realises also that she hasn't so much as acknowledged Castle's text. She ponders her reply for some moments, resisting the temptation simply to call and pour out her sorrows. If she does that, she doesn't think she can also resist the temptation to ask him to come over. Eventually, she simply writes _My Dad is staying. Thank you. B._ and presses Send before she can second-guess herself. She returns to the book, reads a chapter, and finally finds her eyes closing.

She's abruptly jerked awake by a crash. Terror sends her hurrying, still tying her robe, out into the main room, discovering her father picking himself up from the floor. Pale grey dawn is creeping through the windows.

"What happened, Dad?" she gasps, helping him to stand.

"I wanted some water" – Beckett breathes a tiny, hidden sigh of relief – "but I tripped on your rug in the gloom." She hugs him gently, and goes to get his water for him, not filling the glass too full so that it doesn't spill from the tremor in his hands. It had taken him a little time to eat his dinner: the tremor had meant that pieces tended to slip from the fork. He returns to his room, and Beckett to hers. She's almost asleep again when she startles into wakefulness. Her father knows where the glasses are kept. He had been facing entirely in the wrong direction to get one. She stares into the ceiling.

He'd been searching for a drink.

He's just been told that he'll die if he drinks again and he was _still_ looking for a drink – and if he hadn't fallen before he'd found hers he'd have started. He might as well have eaten her Glock. Fortunately that is locked in her drawer, in this room. She buries her head in the comforter, trying not to cry again. Her father might love her, but not enough to live. Truthfully, he hasn't really lived since her mother died. The comforter muffles any noise she might make, and she can't risk her father hearing.

She needs to make some decisions; some choices. She needs to get her wine out of this apartment, for the next few days. She needs someone to talk to, simply so that she can lay out the options and see them clearly. She'd thought she could ask Lanie to keep the booze, but while Lanie is her best friend in all the world she's too close. She won't think from both sides of the fence, she won't challenge Beckett to other thoughts. She'll listen and sympathise and provide sensible, practical commentary, but that's not all that Beckett needs. She, Beckett, doesn't need someone who's on her side right now, she needs a neutral ear.

She looks at her watch – her dad's old watch, and she needs another minute – to find that it's only six a.m. on Saturday. She can't call anyone at that time. But she has to get this ball rolling, or she'll never dare to and then she'll drown too, in second-hand bourbon and the effort to do it all herself.

This time, she can't do it all herself. Maybe she should be able to, maybe she should be stronger, better – but she can't. If she hadn't found her father already looking for liquor, then that would have been different. But it's the last straw. Maybe she should be stronger, but she isn't. She's grieving and resentful and terrified and she needs someone who will listen and not take sides or judge or push or press or force her to talk or not talk. She looks at her phone and the text on it. _If you need to talk, I'm here. RC._ This is likely a really bad idea. But she has no other one. He'll get it when he wakes up. No need to disturb his sleep.

_I need to talk. B._

* * *

Castle, having sent his text, applies a mental discipline that would have astonished his editor and forces himself to write. He's found (though he doesn't tell people: it would ruin his image) that if he simply sits and puts words on the page, no matter how poorly, eventually he will get into the zone and the story will come. How else, after all, would he have produced twenty-six books in considerably fewer years? Of course he's disciplined about it. He just likes annoying Gina. The only time it hadn't worked was after killing Storm and before meeting Katie again. _Not_ Katie. Beckett.

He doesn't expect any sort of an answer at all, and is therefore not disappointed when his phone remains quiet. She's got enough to cope with, today, without him pushing in. (But he wants to. Wants to be there to give her someone to lean on and talk to and draw from. Just like before.)

Around eleven, his phone chirps. Lost in a piece of exposition between his characters, based in the bullpen of his fictional precinct up near 75th, he doesn't hear it. He picks it up much later, when his words have run down and it's time to sleep, and has to read it several times before he believes that it's actually real. Beckett possibly acknowledging his offer of help? He looks around, to ensure he's not somehow been transported into a parallel universe, and concludes that he is still resident at 565 Broome Street, New York, NY10002, USA, The Earth, etc.

About that point, extremely childish digression aside, it dawns on him that there is only likely to be one reason for Beckett's father to be with her. His heart clenches for her. It can't have been good news. There isn't anything he can do about it, or for her, until she asks him; except be available. After all, she'd told him her dad was dying and hadn't cried. Wouldn't cry, in front of him. She is, he's realised, intensely and appallingly private and self-contained, and she's only come round to him because he hasn't pushed her (well, mostly) since that first horrendous night where she'd thrown the spectres of the quick and the dead at him.

He simply has to wait. He hates waiting. But there is nothing else to do, so he goes to bed and sleeps, to dream of Katie Beckett standing, tearless, over a coffin at a funeral where nobody came: the shades of all the lonely people gathered around her.

Something wakes him, far too early. He humphs and turns over, closing his eyes again. Then he jerks awake. That had been his phone. _No-one_ calls him this early, unless there's a body. He grabs it from the nightstand, and is disappointed when it's only a text, not a missed call. Text doesn't mean body. Call would. Hmmph. He turns over again, but insatiable curiosity prompts him to look before he can go back to his nice warm cosy bed and some nice warm cosy sleep. It's just a shame that the only thing in his bed to cuddle up to is a pillow. A nice warm cosy Beckett would be a much better option.

It's from Beckett. All thought of nice warm cosy anything shatters like a dropped mirror. She needs to talk? To him? This cannot be good at all. He'd never expected that she would actually take him up on his offer. Never. Never never.

_I'm here_, he sends, and waits. The phone doesn't ring. Instead, a few moments later, it chirps.

_I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you. It can wait. _Castle resists the temptation to send back _don't worry, the phone woke me :) _ on the grounds that this is no time for jokes and she will never open up again if he blows this; and dials.

"Beckett." She sounds awful.

"It's me, Beckett." There's silence at her end. "Beckett? Are you there?"

"I woke you. I didn't mean to wake you. It can wait. Don't you need your beauty sleep?" It's a very poor attempt at her normal snark.

"My ruggedly handsome good looks don't need enhancement, Beckett." If she can try, he can try to give her some normality. Follow her lead. (He'd never had to, before.) There is no disgusted noise at his conceit. There's another pause, instead.

"He's drinking," she says flatly, out of nowhere. And the dam breaks. "They told him he'd die next time, and he was sneaking round trying to find my drink and I wouldn't have known if he hadn't tripped over a rug before he found it. It was only good luck he didn't cut himself because his blood won't clot properly and he might bleed to death before I'd found him. He's going to kill himself." Castle can hear tears pooling in her voice. "I need to get my booze out of here. I need to stop him." There's another pause. "I _have _to stop him. There's no-one but me." More silence. "I shouldn't be calling you. This isn't your problem."

"I said I'd listen, if you needed a friend."

"It's not your problem," she says again. "It's not fair to lay it on you." He can hear all the misery she isn't letting loose.

"Don't put the phone down!" he says quickly. He can tell she's about to shut down and back off. "You can't leave it there. That's only half a story. You have to tell me the whole story. That's the deal." He really, really hopes that he can reach her for just long enough that she doesn't put the phone down, because if she does cut this call he is going to have to go over there and if he does _that_ he's not at all sure that this won't go some very strange, destructive places indeed. The connection between them is inflammable: equally as dangerous as playing with matches around spilled petrol, and giving in to the physical right now will destroy any chance of a healthy relationship later. His tone changes, smooths into support and comfort. "Tell me, Beckett." _Lean on me_.

"Nothing more to tell. He can't stop, and he won't stop. So I have to stop him." Castle listens to the cut-diamond edge on her voice and recognises it as Beckett taking a hard decision that she doesn't want to have to shoulder but will. Her voice has changed to decisive tones. "Thanks, Castle. That helped. I know what I need to do now. See you Monday." She's gone.

Castle swipes his phone off and slides down under his covers again, thinking hard. Changing Beckett's mind, without any evidence, is slightly harder than convincing Sarah Palin to support Hillary Clinton, but he thinks she is making a really big mistake, from the very best of motives. She wants to save her father.

The only problem is, she can't. And this being Beckett he's thinking about, she's perfectly capable of killing herself trying, probably metaphorically, and then crippling herself with guilt about failing to do something she'd never had the power to do. He wonders if that's what she did about her mother's case, suddenly. There have been just enough hints and clues – and of course, he's seen the file now – that it seems very possible.

She's going to try to do this alone. So much is clear. (She always had.) But… she'd talked to him. Even if she hadn't said anything even close to it, she'd talked to him and that translates to _I need you_. Even if it was only for five minutes. Right. Castle's seldom seen determination rises up. He's done this before. She hadn't known what he was doing then, she'll probably work it out this time, but he doesn't care. She is _not_ doing this alone. She's admitted she needs him and he isn't going to let her down.

He starts to plan. (Plot has such very unpleasant connotations.) Frequent presence. Constant, if he can manage it. She'll snark and complain and ignore him, or more probably threaten to shoot him, but she won't do that, because every so often she'll need a moment and he'll be there to give her it. She needs to lean on someone, and he is going to make sure that it's he with his arms around her. No kisses, though. Kisses would be inviting disaster, like logging with flamethrowers in California in high summer. Slow, and gentle, and strong. Just like before. This time, though, he's not going to allow anyone to get in the way, or tell lies about his motives, or let anything at all spoil it.

* * *

Beckett is also lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, knowing what she has to do. Move her alcohol out, her father in, and keep him from killing himself till he can do it himself. Funny how simply talking to Castle for five minutes without even discussing it had cleared her mind. She can deal with it for a few months. It's not as if she drinks much anyway, and eating a bit more healthily and in company won't hurt her at all. She's got sloppy about her diet since she split with Will, and eating on the couch every night isn't good for her.

She can do this.

She ignores the nagging truth that there is no way she can force her father to stay, that unless she's going to escort him twenty-four/seven she can't prevent him doing anything, and that she can't save him. She's learnt that in Al-Anon, but she's forgetting it.

She gets up, despite it being before seven on a Saturday, moves through her morning routine and then heads for the kitchen and the coffee. While the kettle heats, she quietly listens at her father's door, detects wheezy snoring and decides to seize the moment. Softly, she collects up all her alcohol, and takes it down to her car to stow it temporarily in the trunk. It'll be safe there, for now.

She drinks the first of her mugfuls of coffee and sucks thoughtfully on the end of a pencil in the hope that it will help her to concoct a shopping list. It takes a while, and more coffee, because she's out of practice when it comes to cooking. Cleaning products, personal products and coffee, on the other hand, are down there in thirty seconds flat. She very occasionally runs out of her favourite body wash, and has to use her emergency backup. She has never in her entire adult life run out of coffee.

A second mug of concentrated caffeine later, a shopping list containing a week's worth of balanced meals which can be prepared relatively easily (she's never used the slow cooker Aunt Theresa gave her, but come on, how hard can it be if she reads the instructions?) has emerged. If that fails, there's always mac-and-cheese and salad. She adds another mac-and-cheese to the list. Okay, that's done. She'll read till her father wakes, and then they can discuss what's going to happen.

Her father doesn't wake till nearly nine, and when he staggers blearily out of his room Beckett is forced to call on every last scrap of interrogation technique to hide her utter shock. He looks dreadful: far worse than he had done yesterday afternoon. His skin is crumpled and tainted with yellow; his eyes are bloodshot and his stance is stooped and shuffling around his swollen stomach. Beckett realises with appalled disgust that if she'd seen this type of man on the street she'd have given him a wide berth, or possibly a dollar in his cup. The only difference between her father and a panhandler is that he's better dressed, clean, and he's still got enough money to pay for treatment.

"Hey, Dad. Do you want some coffee?"

"Morning, Katie. Yes, please." It's so normal, so like it might have been years ago, when she was too teenage to notice. She's not teenage now, and they need to talk. Seeing him like this has brought it all right back home to her. She delays by making his coffee, automatically adding milk and bringing it to him.

"Dad, we need to talk about what's going to happen." Her father looks a little confused. "I want you to move in here." There's a very short silence.

"No."

"But Dad" – This is all going wrong. He has to stay.

"No. I stayed last night because you wanted me to, but now I want to be in my own place. I can't stay here, Katie. You've got your own life to lead."

"But I want you here." She can't let him leave. "Don't go, Dad."

"Katie, I'll be fine." It's too much. It's all collapsing around her: her careful, self-sacrificing plan to keep him alive. She can't take the disappointment.

"You won't be fine. I don't want you to be on your own. I'm not letting you go home alone." She only just stops herself turning back into the child who'd yelled _It's not fair_. It's harder not to say _I'm not going to let you kill yourself._

"Katie," her father says sadly. "Katie, do you think I was looking for a drink?" He sounds so very offended and sincere, that for a moment she doubts what she knows. But then she remembers how often he's lied about his drinking, how often she's believed him, only to be let down later.

"Dad, you weren't going in the direction of the kitchen. Where were you going?"

"I got turned around in the dark, Katie. That's why I want to go home." _It wasn't dark, Dad_.

"I think you should stay," she says. Her father's face crumples, as if he were a child caught out in a lie. She hates this. She hates every second of this discussion. She can't bear having to treat her own father as a suspect just to stop him drowning. Can't he see she doesn't want to be doing this either? She just wants her dad to be alive, not lying next to her mother in Cypress Hills.

Deep down, she already knows she's lost the argument. All she can do is hope that she hasn't lost her father too.

Her father has developed a mutinous, angry expression. "If you don't trust me, Katie, I don't think there's any point in this conversation. I'm going home now." He's gone before she can think of anything to say that isn't _I don't want you to die._ Which has never worked before: it's only led to platitudes and promises and pain when the promises are broken.

The promises are always broken.

* * *

_Thank you to everyone. I really appreciate hearing your thoughts._

_Please no spoilers for tonight's episode in reviews - I know you all try not to, but... please? I won't see it for at least another day._


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14: Drown my sorrow**

An hour later, she's still staring at the table, trying to work out where she went wrong and how to fix it. There's a small damp patch in front of her. She's not got a single idea.

There's a knock on her door. There shouldn't be a knock on her door. She'd told Joe she didn't want any visitors – surely he'd passed that on to the other doormen? Unless – unless her dad has changed his mind and come back? Hope surges as she goes to the door and opens it without even looking.

"Hey," says Castle. He didn't exactly expect her to fling her arms around his neck, but her instant look of devastation seems a touch uncalled for.

"It's you." She sounds as if that's the worst outcome imaginable. Castle steps inside and shuts the door.

"I'm not that bad," he says plaintively, all the time observing her closely. "I could have been someone really nasty. A serial killer. A zombie. Worse, I could have been a _politician_." It doesn't lift her eyebrows, lips or mood at all.

"Why are you here, Castle? I said I'd see you Monday. My dad's" –

"Gone out." A very odd expression slides across her face and away. She moves to the kitchen and automatically fills the kettle, pulls down two mugs. She hasn't even asked him if he wants a coffee. Castle begins to worry.

"How'd you know?"

"Your doorman told me. He only let me up because I promised I'd come straight back down if you were busy." He smiles gently. "I'll go as soon as he comes back. I wouldn't want to intrude on your family time." He notices a rigidity in her back and shoulders that hadn't been there a moment ago. "Beckett…? If he'll only be five minutes I'll go now." _Don't push. Don't force. You said you'd listen _if_ she talked_.

" 'S okay, Castle. Plenty time to have a coffee." Her voice is wholly locked down. Castle's worry kicks up a notch. He's heard that tone before: once telling him to seek answers in the cemetery; and once telling him _I'm not going… this isn't fuck-a-geek week_. He moves into the kitchen and stands closer. Not too close. He wants to enfold her, but that doesn't seem a good plan when she's holding on to her control like this. He wonders for a second, far too late to change history, whether if he'd held her more that long-ago time they could have avoided the corrosive lies, whether if he'd not let her back off he'd have found out the truth. Past's past, though: he can't change that. Maybe he can change things now.

She's not looking at him, turned towards the mugs and coffee, still turned away when she reaches for creamer.

"Flavoured? I have plain, or vanilla."

"Vanilla, please."

He follows her and sits next to her on the couch: leaving the same civil, neutral distance as he had on Wednesday. She's cuddling her coffee mug in both palms, elbows on her knees: despite the warmth of this late-April day she looks cold, as if she's taking warmth from the heat in the cup. Her face is still closed. Castle puts his own mug down with a soft click and it seems to alert her to his continued presence.

"Sorry. Just thinking." She takes a drink of her coffee. When she lifts her elbow from her knee, her hand is not entirely steady.

"It's okay." He can't stand the empty look on her face any more, nor the betrayal shown by the tremor in her fingers. He removes her cup from her and slides close, taking her hand. "Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine." Which is not the same as _I am fine_, which in any case in Beckett's personal perversion of the English language would mean _I am not fine but I'm not admitting anything_. So _I'll be fine_ means _I am not fine_. And also, significantly, yet again she hasn't moved her hand away. In fact, it's almost a curve of her cold fingers into his. Almost. He swaps his hand over so he can put an arm around her, and suddenly, like much earlier this morning, words start to tumble and fall around him.

"Dad hasn't gone out. He's gone. He won't stay here. He said I didn't trust him and he left." And then she stops, forcibly, pulls her hand out from his and leans forward, short hair not quite hiding her expression before she slumps, elbows on knees again, hands around her face, away from him. She's not crying, again. "He's going to go home and drink. He's going to kill himself and he doesn't care." Her voice is crystal clear and equally brittle. Castle doesn't know what to say, and for once takes the sensible option of saying nothing. Instead, he slides until he's right up against her and brings his arm off the back of the couch to curl around her shoulders. He doesn't pull her in against him; he doesn't move in any way that might insinuate anything other than asexual comfort and friendship. He's not at all sure that she knows he's done it.

"I won't have anyone," she says, so quietly that he barely hears her, and then, bitterly, "He doesn't care about that. He just wants to be with Mom."

Castle, who cannot imagine ever taking that attitude to his daughter, but who also cannot understand the mentality that would drive someone with a child to alcohol and abdication anyway, hears the old pain and new bitterness and inadvertently pulls Beckett far closer than is sensible or indeed safe. She fits within his arm so very differently, but it feels so very much the same. He wants to kiss her. First kiss her better, and then, when it's all been made better, simply kiss her.

"He doesn't care that I love him. He's not cared since Mom died. I'm not enough for him to want to live. Nothing I can do makes any difference. I can't even persuade him to live here." Her voice is dying away. "I can't make him live."

And she crumples. She falls in against him: puppet with the strings cut, finally crying, silently and reluctantly, as if she has no right to weep because she can't save her dad. It's not how Castle wanted to end up with an armful of Beckett. Kissing her isn't going to make this better. He fumbles in a pocket and comes up with a clean tissue, pushes it into her hand. She blots her eyes and wipes her nose, pulling back into her fortress of control. The speed with which she shuts it all down is terrifyingly impressive. He doesn't let go of her: the tension thrumming through her not in any way reduced by her brief tears; she doesn't try to move away. She's tucked against him, head still on his shoulder, the reality that she can't save her father leaving her still strung tight.

Beckett knows that she should ask Castle to leave: give herself the chance to break that she won't take in front of anyone else. She should ask him to leave, before she takes a step she can't undo; before she finds a way to stop herself from breaking down. She can feel the need to blank out the pain and the truth rising in her mind; just as it had when she was fourteen, when she buried herself in work; just as she had when it was nineteen, to reinforce her walls in meaningless physical release: to take any way that presents itself to forget, for a while.

Her mother is dead, and she can't solve that case, can't do anything about that. Her father doesn't love her enough to stay alive, and she can't force him to, can't do anything about that. But Castle has previously made it very clear that he wants her. And she _can_ do something about that.

"Is there anything I can do, Beckett?" He's still holding her close, large and comforting under her cheek. All her furious resentment at her father's abdication of his life, all the misery and rejection that she's barely realised that she's feeling as a consequence of his actions, collects into one toxic tide of absolute insanity.

"Make me forget."

And she hauls his head down and takes Castle's mouth aggressively, desperate to prove to herself that there's life in the midst of death. His reaction is satisfyingly immediate: she can feel him harden against her and his arms are tight and his mouth is as hot and demanding as hers. Here and now, she doesn't care what his motives might be, she doesn't care what her own motives might be, she simply doesn't want to be alone and unwanted.

Beckett doesn't let up on Castle's mouth until she can't breathe. When she does, it's only to move down over the stubble on his chin, sideways to his neck, nipping on his ear and driving him on: deep into the oblivion of blind physical need. One hand bites into Castle's shirt and shoulders, one grips his neck and holds him precisely where she wants him. He feels so very good against her: the spark she hadn't fully understood back when, couldn't have acted on, flaring into incandescent, scorching flame. She takes back his mouth and starts taking him where she wants to go, starting on his buttons, slipping evil, frantic fingers inside the cotton to stroke across his chest, scrape over his nipples, make him gasp and light him up till he'll give her what she needs.

It's not till Beckett's frenzied, desperate hand starts ripping open the buttons of his shirt that Castle regains a sliver of sense through the fog of overwhelming, blinding desire. He can't push her away, but he can't let this continue. He doesn't think this has anything to do with him, but everything to do with Beckett searching for something to prove she's wanted, however transiently. It's a rebound reaction to her father's rejection: seeking life, and it is just not healthy. This is not the way to start a proper relationship.

He can't push her away, but he can pull her in and hold her tighter and stop her stripping him – _oh fuck, Beckett_ – and slow this down no matter how much he doesn't want to – _shit if she does that again I'll be finished_ – and he catches her hand and hauls her hard against him where she can't do _that_ again and keeps her there with one strong arm while the other curves around her cheekbone and guides her head back to his lips where he can soften this into something that he might actually be able to deal with. He fights back and takes possession, but Beckett's not receptive to any idea of slowing or softening even if he's stopped her destructive hands. He pulls back and holds her off.

"Beckett, _slow down_." It has no effect whatsoever. Time for drastic measures. "_Katie_."

"_I am not Katie._" As if it's a spur, she snaps her hands free and uses one to pull his mouth back to hers to bite hard down on his lip; strokes the other down over his chest, his belt, the hard bulge below, and her hand is _inside_ his pants and only one of them is in control of this in any way at all and it's not him and _No_. If they are going down this road she will damn well _be_ his Katie. However much he's fighting his own desire to take her hard and fast as she so obviously wants – _ohh shit she shouldn't do that_ – he will not be her route to meaningless oblivion. Oblivion, sure, but it isn't going to be transient or meaningless. His way or no way.

He wrestles her hands away and holds on more tightly than last time, straightens up so that she can't keep plundering his mouth and it's the hardest thing he's had to do in years: stopping; not simply carrying on with this because it would be so very good and he wants her more than he's wanted anything in a very long time. (fifteen years since he's wanted anything this much) But then he'd spend far too long sorting the inevitable mess out afterwards.

"Slow down," he says again, in deep easy tones to make his point. "No hurry. You wanna forget, I'll make you forget." He stays holding her wrists with one hand and pulls her up into his lap with the other; slides that hand up into her hair and uses it to angle her head for his searching kiss. "There," he says when he lifts a little. "Slow will be just as good." He kisses her again, holding her close, the position of her own body preventing her attacking again; and when he releases her wrists both her arms come up round his neck so that he can soften from the hard possession with which he had begun to delicate, slow seduction; and maybe, just maybe, he can divert this from the fast track to mutually assured destruction that they're currently on, before she does something that he can't stop. He can't keep fighting Beckett and his own desire. Either one is difficult enough.

More kisses, slow and deep and just hard enough that she might not recognise what he's doing: pulling back and easing up without ever rejecting her; his hand stroking areas which won't inflame this; and gradually the frenetic desperation dissipates, the tension flows out of Beckett, and everything changes again. It's the soft comfort and undemanding intimacy of a much younger age. Maybe that's why he stops kissing, and murmurs automatically into her hair, "There, sweetheart, it'll be okay," just as he had all that long time ago. (She'd been his sweetheart, and he'd called her so.)

He might as well have stabbed her. She's gone absolutely rigid and all the blood has drained from her face. She shoves herself away from him, appalled realisation spreading over her face as she stands up. She shouldn't have done that. She wasn't going to do that. It wouldn't have meant anything and she _wasn't going to do that_ but she wouldn't have stopped on her own.

"I'm sorry. I… I'm sorry. That was a mistake." Castle stands up too, with an expression that strongly suggests he has every intention of carrying on if he receives the slightest encouragement. The problem is, so would she, but it would be a mistake. It would be so easy, and so pleasurable, and so wrong.

"I didn't think it was a mistake. I enjoyed it," he says, smiling lazily. "If you want to shower me with kisses, I'm quite happy to return the favour." She achieves a safe distance and stops backing away. He takes two strides and ends up next to her again. "Come here," he entices, and reaches for her. She takes a further step away. He's _dangerous_, in a way that she's been ignoring for over a month. Since the day he reappeared in her life. She isn't going to get into a meaningless relationship with Castle.

"No. It was a mistake. It's not fair." She's taking another step away. _No_. Castle is not having that. He thinks he knows why she thinks it's not fair: she thinks she hasn't the emotional capacity for anything other than her dad. Well, that's fine. She doesn't have to worry now about having anything more, because this is not about some transient relationship, it's about going back to how it used to be. Which does not involve (though he won't turn it down if the opportunity arises) searing physical desire and nothing else. That is not the way it will be. They will come to some much better arrangement and the best way to achieve that is going to be providing support, not simply taking her to bed. Of course, doing both would be even better, but now is (regrettably) not the time.

He takes another stride towards her, and this time he doesn't bother with enticement, simply takes her back into his arms. Surprisingly, she doesn't argue. Seems he's not the only one fighting himself here.

"We don't have to do anything," he says gently, "though" – he grins – "if you do want to I'm game. Up to you." That raises a small quirk of lips and eyebrow.

"Not a good plan, Castle." He pouts. If Beckett wants normality, she can have it. For a given value of normal, which involves her _normally_ being wrapped into him.

"I think it would be an excellent plan." But he doesn't move his hands to areas where he might begin the game again. "But if you think you should resist my ruggedly handsome appearance then I suppose I'll just have to put up with it. It's very disappointing, though." Beckett emits a small snort of disgust at his vanity. He takes them a step back towards the couch. "If you won't kiss me, how about coming on a date?"

"No."

"A drink?" Another step.

"No." She's falling into the give-and-take of the normal precinct banter, and it's relaxing her.

"A sandwich and a soda?" A third step.

"No."

"Come on. There must be something you _will_ do with me."

"Well..." drawls Beckett, only too glad to have her mind taken off her problems in any way at all that doesn't involve doing something insanely stupid, and equally grateful that Castle seems to be prepared to let pass the blazing idiocy that she's just displayed, "there is something I would really, really like to do." Castle looks hopeful. "I need some practice shooting live targets."

"No!" squawks Castle, theatrically terrified. He flumps down on to the couch again and pulls Beckett down with him, keeping her within his grip. "There," he says with satisfaction. "Now you can't shoot me."

"Wanna bet?"

"Well, you aren't wearing your gun, so yeah, I'll bet." Beckett emits a rather disgruntled humph. "I'll bet another cup of coffee." This humph is definitely irritable. "Please?"

Coffee duly arrives. Beckett sits back down with the original civil distance preserved, much to Castle's disappointment, and stares into her coffee. There's a small space of quiet.

Beckett is considering her options, again. The coffee is not supplying her with any good answers. She feels that she owes Castle something of an explanation for her abrupt switch of behaviour and why this isn't going to work. No point building up a false position. She takes a fortifying gulp of coffee and a deep breath. She doesn't look at him.

"After my mother was killed," she begins, slowly. It's not the beginning. The beginning was when others caused her to believe a lie. But it's when it really took hold of her. "Something inside me changed. It's like I built up this wall inside. And I just didn't want to hurt like that again, but now," another deep breath, another drink, "I will. I know that I'm not going …" a longer pause… "I'm not going to have any kind of relationship until that wall comes down. And it's not going to happen because of my dad." She stops. "I can't afford it. I have to be strong for him, for as long as I have him. There's no room for anything else. Because when he's gone, I've got no-one."

* * *

_Thank you all. I enjoy hearing what you think._


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15: Slipping through my fingers**

Castle wonders whether to point out the fallacy in Beckett's statement: namely that when her father is gone she will have no-one. She won't need to have no-one: she could have him. He decides on temporary silence, again. Being with Beckett is an interesting way of learning to control his inclination to chatter and fill up the space with words. A crash course, in fact. But he takes a drink, to stop himself jabbering pointlessly – or, equally possible, damagingly. Beckett's said more to him on this single day about important matters than she ever has before. He's almost made it through the minefield, so he doesn't want to spoil it now. She's staring into her almost-empty mug again. He sets his down, done.

"Now what?" he asks.

"I don't know. I can hardly arrest my own dad on suspicion. I don't want him arrested at all." She takes a scraped breath. "Suicide is not a crime, and that's… that's what he's doing." Her head bows momentarily, then she stands up, collects Castle's mug, and puts them both in the sink. He pads after her.

"It's time I went, Beckett." Just for an instant she looks as if the lifebelt's been pulled away from her drowning hand. Then it's gone, and it's the familiar reserve again.

"Sure. Thanks for coming by."

"Any time." He dips a tentative toe in the water. "If you need to…" he says, and leaves it all hanging.

"Thanks," she says again, retreating into herself. He steps forward, tugs her into him.

"I'll be around." _ Just like I used to be_. "If you need it. No pressure. Just call." He kisses her briefly on the top of her head, holds her in for a second, in which there's a tiny easing against him, and then collects himself to leave.

Beckett washes up the coffee mugs and tries to work out what's going on with anything. Everything. She puts Castle aside relatively rapidly. He's not demanding anything, but he's said he'll be there if she needs to talk. Even if she never needs it, simply knowing that he's there is a comfort. Seems that they've managed to be friends again, in a reassuringly tactile way, where his big frame is around her without expecting anything. Her stupid behaviour earlier hasn't ruined it. That's luckier than she deserves.

That leaves her father. Well, if he won't stay with her, she might as well bring her wine back up from the car. She does that, before she forgets, and as a way of putting off the next thought. Unfortunately, once the bottles have sloshed back into place in the cabinet, she doesn't have another good excuse. She can't stop him. All she can do is keep phoning him, every day, reminding him that he has a reason to live; visiting him as often as she can.

She spends the rest of the day re-reading all the information that she's kept from Al-Anon and that she'd taken from the clinic yesterday. She might as well be informed: have all her evidence in place. And if one or two pieces of paper are a little damp by the time she's finished, that's no-one's affair but hers. She has to put on a brave face for her dad. He needs her.

* * *

Over the next week or so, every time she rings her father he's sober: every time she visits he's fine, or as fine as he's ever likely to be. Her worst fears aren't realised. She encourages him to eat, and cooks and eats with him a couple of times; squeezing out the time from her cases to call or meet. However busy she is, however important her work, she doesn't fail to contact him each day. Castle's always somewhere around, showing up at some point every day, even though there isn't a body or a new case. She doesn't try to analyse the comforting feeling that brings, and doesn't realise that she's ever so gradually increasing her reliance on seeing him to cheer up her day, however marginally.

But with every day that passes, she still can't relax: if anything, the opposite. She's always waiting for the hammer to fall, and each time her phone rings she startles, however slightly, tense until she's answered and heard that it's not her father, or doctors, or custody sergeants. If her father were arrested, they'd call her. Maybe even before they processed him, depending: cop to cop courtesy.

* * *

Another week arrives, and with it a new body: voodoo and strange symbols. Beckett's frantically busy, and the appearance of Castle's first ex-wife really does not help. For the first time in a couple of weeks, she feels a divide: she and the boys on one side, Castle's ex on the other, and, planted firmly like the last shelled tree in No-Man's Land, Castle in the middle, neither one thing nor the other. It's moderately clear to Beckett, both as cop and woman, that Meredith wants Castle to herself. She doesn't lift a finger to prevent it, and watches them go without revealing a hint of any desire for Castle to stay. She doesn't have a right to ask, and she doesn't have the headspace to waste on a redheaded bimbo anyway.

But a feeling of upset slithers under her control, and after she's called her dad, still sober, she returns to her desk and keeps working, blocking out the uncertainty that's suddenly whispering in her ear. _What if… what if…_ If one thing goes wrong, others will. She throws herself deeper into the case, chasing down leads and fakes and Canal Street addresses, busywork on anything she can find. Come eight, she considers and ignores the idea of leaving. Come nine, she's past caring or noticing.

She is considerably shocked when she returns from the restroom and the break room to find a familiar presence has appeared in its familiar posture, lounging in the chair beside her desk.

"Beckett, why are you still here?"

"Work to do," she says.

"I had to come all the way across here to find you. I thought you'd be at home by now." She looks up, surprised.

"Have you been to my apartment? Why?"

She really doesn't know, does she? He hadn't wanted to spend time with Meredith: she's been coming on to him since she arrived in Manhattan and he's running out of excuses that aren't _I've found the woman I should never have lost_, which is unlikely to go down well. He wants real, and Meredith is not real. Even her voice is a construct, designed to attract and seduce and entice. He's got used to cool, sharp tones, not little-girl breathy and high. So he'd bribed Alexis – his mother hasn't been seen except on her way out or in since Meredith showed up: they never had got along – to take her mother out for dinner as a bonding session, funded the most expensive restaurant in town and pretended relatively convincingly that he was desperate to join them but Alexis wouldn't let him. The price of that little show will undoubtedly involve some extortionately priced educational trip to Alaska, or Greenland, or Europe. Sometimes Alexis is distressingly similar to her grandmother: extortion a speciality.

"I wanted to see if there was anything new on the case."

"Nothing. We'll all go to Canal Street in the morning and see if we get anything." She yawns, and looks at her watch. Her dad's watch. There's a very tiny twist at the corner of her mouth. He was still sober, this evening. It's been over a week, and he's still sober. Maybe…

"C'mon, I'll walk you home. It'll still all be there tomorrow."

"Shouldn't you be home? Playing host and looking after your guest?"

"Meredith and Alexis went out to dinner. Mother said she'd be home tonight, so Alexis will be fine. Meredith doesn't stay with us." Beckett raises an eyebrow. "No. It would be like pouring petrol over dynamite and then lighting a match. One histrionic actress in the loft is quite enough. I couldn't cope with more."

Beckett yawns again, trying not to. She's not bored, she's exhausted. She's never bored by Castle. Infuriated, irritated, amused and now comforted, but not bored. She looks over at him, and smiles a small, tired smile.

"Walk me home, then, if only so I can protect you from the histrionics."

"You're the cop with the gun. It's your job to protect me." _And mine to protect you_. Not being stupid, he doesn't say that. He waits politely while Beckett packs up, and then behaves impeccably all the way out of the front door of the precinct, and beyond.

As soon as they round the corner out of immediate sight of any cop coming out the precinct, Castle takes Beckett's hand, tugs firmly, and ends up in precisely the alignment he'd been planning since he'd located her at her desk: with his arm round Beckett and she neatly tucked into him.

"What are you doing, Castle?"

"Walking you home." Beckett growls softly but forcefully.

"Where did that turn into _this_?" She prods his arm, ungently.

"Tradition," Castle says airily. "_Ow_!" Beckett has prodded him again. "That'll bruise, Beckett. That's not nice. I thought cops weren't allowed to beat people up physically."

"_I_ thought that writers didn't try to put their arms round the cops that they're shadowing. Or are you going to start cuddling Ryan or Espo too?"

"Two wrongs don't make a right," Castle says piously, when he's recovered breath from the ghastly idea of cuddling either Ryan or Espo. "Tell you what, you don't beat me up and I'll pretend you're not a cop."

"Huh? No. That doesn't work. Shouldn't that be I won't beat you up and you won't put your arm round me?"

"Nope. That doesn't work either."

"How so?"

Castle grins. "Because I've got my arm round you and you like it. So it's staying." Underneath the jocular tone is a rather more determined current. And it is true that she likes it.

Wholly lost under the Damoclean sword of her father's current, fragile, hold on sobriety is the scrap of memory and knowledge that this is the way they began so very long ago. Physical contact, and the protection of, and desire for, big, broad and slightly dangerous male. All she needs to think now is that, although she would never have asked, (so she tells herself, forgetting that she already has) this helps. A lot. But he doesn't get to make that casual assumption about her likes quite that easily.

"Unjustified assertions, Castle?" She lets her tongue linger on the sibilants. His arm tightens round her. "You should be careful of those. They might get you into trouble."

"If they were unjustified, or indeed assertions, then they might. Since they're not, I reckon I'm pretty safe."

"Oh?"

"It's elementary, my dear Beckett. If you didn't like it, you'd have shot me, or carried out a similarly painful exercise. You haven't. Ergo, you do like it. QED." He sounds rather smug.

"I'll buy you a deerstalker and meerschaum for Christmas," huffs Beckett, somewhat disconcerted. She considers removing herself from Castle's arm as punishment for his arrogance, and then decides that that would simply cut off her nose and spite her face. She's less tense than she has been in days, and she needs that, however it arrives. In the darkening twilight of late evening, she can lean on Castle's strength and be comforted.

The walk is pleasant, and quiet. Castle's incessant precinct chatter and insane, unsubstantiated theorising is absent, and Beckett has nothing to say that wouldn't result in an outpouring of pain and stress and resentment of her father's choices. She simply needs peace, and that's precisely what she is receiving. No pressure, no demands. She slips her own arm round Castle's waist as they turn into a small park, and sticks to enjoying the moment. Reality will intrude soon enough: for now, she'll take a time out, all the way home.

When they reach her block, Beckett looks momentarily uncertain. "Want a coffee, Castle, before you go home?" In truth, she doesn't want this space of serenity to end just yet.

"Okay," Castle says amiably. In the privacy of his head he's thinking something a lot closer to _Yes!_ He follows Beckett up and into her apartment. It's as clinically clean and neat as the last time he was here. "Do you actually live here?" falls out his mouth as he wanders around the main room.

"No," snips Beckett. "I just have keys to random strangers' apartments and squat in them. Of course I live here."

"Oh."

Beckett declines to take that bait. Her books are here. That's all she needs. Photos would only remind her of other times, and if her father ever does come round would upset him, too. She has them all, safely in a box, all her photos, and all the others, which she'd recovered before they could be destroyed in a moment of drunken rage, or misery. Mostly, it's been misery.

"I could give you a couple of PR shots."

"No thanks. Though come to think of it my dartboard needs a new cover image." Castle splutters. He also hears the tightness in Beckett's voice, and stops his move around her room, which had been getting closer and closer to her opened bedroom door, to crowd in behind her in her little kitchenette. When she opens the fridge for some creamer – vanilla, again – there's even less in it than last time.

"Aren't you going to have dinner?"

"I'm not hungry. Big lunch." That's a lie. He knows what she had for lunch: what she always has. A sandwich at her desk, some fruit or a small salad, a soda: another several gallons of coffee. Tomorrow, he thinks, might involve the provision of doughnuts for everyone. But if she were hungry, she'd eat. He looks carefully at the areas he can see: mainly the back of her neck and her wrists; her profile. Looking now, when she doesn't have a concealing jacket, it all seems a little more sharp-edged, a little more finely cut, than two weeks ago. Unhappiness destroys hunger, it seems.

He reaches for the coffee and leans against the counter, content to be here, accepted and indeed invited. Things are very much going his way. Beckett, though, should be a little nearer. He slides along and insinuates an arm round her again. There's a tiny sigh, and a tinier softening against him. It's pleasantly domestic, cuddling Beckett while sipping coffee in her kitchen. He could stand a lot more of it, starting with cuddling Beckett while sipping coffee in almost anywhere he can think of. He blinks. Domesticity? That's not something he normally considers with regard to women. That's reserved for his family.

"I keep waiting for the call," Beckett says, out of nowhere. "Every time my phone rings, it could be about my dad." Castle kicks his brain into high gear to catch up. Oh. She doesn't expect her father to stay sober. Which translates as _Every time my phone rings I'm expecting him to have been picked up dead drunk. Or simply dead._ Oh, Beckett. No wonder she's stressed and not eating. He's wholly amazed she can work. Then again, she'd always been found hiding in the library or study hall. Work as refuge. Some things obviously don't change. He strokes her shoulder, consolingly, and waits for her to finish her coffee, as he's finished his.

"He's stayed sober so far, but it won't last. It never does. I can't believe he's managed it this far." She sniffs quietly. "I shouldn't think like this. I should be pleased that he has. I should believe in him." Another quiet sniff, and a breath that isn't quite a sob. (She never cries, even when she should.) "But I just can't. He's never stopped for long." She puts her mug down, and rapidly, surreptitiously, wipes her hand over her eyes; sniffs again, still quietly, as if she thinks she can hide her upset; shivers.

The next thing she knows she's turned around and tucked in between Castle's shoulder and neck, blotted against the smooth cotton of his shirt, held tight, her back being stroked between her scapulae, down the hard protrusions of her spine. She knows she's lost weight, these last few days: and the slight check of his hand confirms it. His hand returns to sliding up and down her back, spread wide to warm her, the other staying around her shoulders. Unlike the previous time, she leans into him, though her control is still – just about – holding. She stays like that for some several minutes: rough breathing finally smoothing out; no more sniffs.

The sliding slows, but doesn't stop, as Beckett continues to lean on Castle's muscled shoulder, the aroma of his aftershave permeating her nostrils and leaching into her skin. She becomes aware that she should move away, before she does something stupid. Again. Moving away, however, doesn't seem to be on Castle's agenda. The arm that was around her shoulders now appears to be a hand stroking her cheek, in time with the slow slides up and down her back. Soothing is moving perilously close to seductive. Heat and danger start to swirl around her, and her head rises slowly to meet Castle's darkening, intent eyes. Leaning in shifts unconsciously to curving in, and as Beckett's face comes up Castle's comes down and their lips meet.

His hand runs back into her hair, the other slips right down to the curve of her spine and keeps her against him, his mouth is warm and gentle as he entreats entry which she doesn't hesitate to grant. And then it all goes into overdrive, afterburners firing, accelerating through Mach One before either of them have caught up with the fact that the brakes have come off: his tongue in her mouth, her hands opening his shirt, his hard thigh between her legs and _nobody's_ stopping or sensible or sane and his hand runs over her ass and she gasps and palms over his chest and downward and her fingers seek out the weight of him so it's his turn to need more air and _oh shit_ what are they _doing_ but it's too good, too hot to stop yet and _oh_ his hand is under her shirt which is open too and everywhere his fingers touch are little points of heat and want and need and nothing's gentle anymore.

The sharp scorching shock of being skin to skin where both shirts hang open recalls them to their senses.

"What was that?"

"You kissed me."

"No, you kissed me."

"No, it was you."

"Didn't"

"Did."

"Didn't."

"Did. You just couldn't resist me." Beckett makes a rather disgusted noise. Then she realises that her shirt is wide open. As is Castle's. Both of them, in fact, look halfway to the bedroom. That hadn't been the plan. Anybody's plan. The arc of desire she'd felt the very first time he kissed her is right back between them. She knows it would be insane to give into it now, but tugging him into her bedroom and _not stopping_ is very close to the front of her mind. She rapidly buttons up.

Castle copies her, barely more slowly. That had definitely not been the plan. _Kissing _her hadn't been the plan. That had been... amazing. Explosive. And fundamentally insane. Even knowing that it would be absolute madness doesn't stop him wanting to pick her up, take her to her bedroom and start again without any need to stop. The flame he'd felt when she took his hand has just roared into forest fire. His arms slip back around her without any conscious decision at all.

"I ...think I should go home, Beckett." But she's still in his arms. He's not let go. She hasn't moved.

"Yes..." she agrees slowly. But he doesn't let go. She doesn't move. And she's still in his arms.

And then she looks up and unconsciously bites on her lip and he'd always kissed her when she did that.

Now is no exception.

* * *

_Thank you, everybody. I really appreciate all your comments._


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16: I'm the one that you can go to**

_This is a mistake_. It's the last thing she remembers thinking before she gives up on thinking and gives in to the physical. She's fighting his hard, demanding mouth and possessive grip with her own weapons of mass seduction, twining tongue and wicked dextrous fingers; nails scraping over the muscle of his chest, his buttons reopened; biting into his shoulders as he takes her mouth deeply, sure of himself and her response: and heat and moisture is pooling in her body. His hand presses her into him, size and answering hardness where she wants and needs it, pushing against him and her leg comes up so that she's closer still and he grips her thigh and nips at her ear and then licks too-swiftly over a spot on her neck that makes her squirm into him and rub over him and then, mutually, they're stumbling blindly to the bedroom, mouths still locked, hot hands struggling to open buttons and undo belts while not stopping movement and shoes being kicked off and left behind as part of a trail of outer clothing till they fall half-stripped on to her bed together.

_I should stop_. But he can't stop. Not while Beckett doesn't stop. He kisses down from her avid mouth along her collarbone and sweeps his lips against the lace edge to her bra and palms the soft small mounds and she gasps and strokes down over him and somehow he's naked and she – isn't: but she will be and the bra goes and he has free access to kiss and roll and _oh she likes that_ suck and his hand pulls her in and over and now he can reach her and the panties go and _shit_ she's wet and open and it's for him and he is so very ready for her and he rolls her over and presses hard into the slick heat between her legs and she's making little noises and pulling him into alignment and panting – _oh _that's he who's panting – and she's touching him and sliding and stroking and feathering and then gripping _oh he likes that_ and _Castle now!_ he pushes all the way home and they fit together just perfectly for him to possess her mouth as he's possessing her body and matches the rhythm of his tongue to the rhythm of their motion and there's nothing but them left in the world: higher and harder and faster and then desperate seeking and then finding oblivion.

_I shouldn't have done that_. But he's lying over her still, and even though she's squashed into the bed the cradle of his frame feels so very, very good. She's almost disappointed as he rolls off her, but he doesn't let go and she finds that she can lie with her arm over his chest and her head pillowed softly on his shoulder. Close as lovers.

Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God. Lovers. She _wasn't going to do that_. It felt so good but doing it was so very badly wrong when she can't give him anything serious because she needs it all for her father and she told him so and _shit_ what has she _done_? She didn't think about anything except the instant physical gratification and _oh shit_ she didn't think about any of the usual matters so thank Christ she's on birth control and just _oh shit_ what is _happening_ to her life? Except she's cosseted in the curve of his body round her and she _did_ tell him where she stood and she doesn't have the ability to say no to something this good when everything else is so very bad right now and if he can be content with the position then for this evening so can she. Time enough to take stock another day. She eases down again.

Castle had kept hold of Beckett precisely so that he was in a position to sense the shifts in muscle tension that might give him a clue to what she was, or is, thinking. The first half-second or so was reassuringly quiet and peaceful. Then she startled. Then she relaxed again. He'd expected her to pull away, but she hasn't. Yet. He wraps her in a little more closely and lets his fingers trail delicately over the smooth skin, not deliberately arousing, but not entirely innocent either. That had been amazing. He would very much like to do that again, and again, and again. Starting now. He could make her feel so good: he's barely started to show her all the different ways he can make love to her. He wants to make her feel that way: give her the oblivion she's seeking, but only as part of showing her that he's hers, and she should be his. Her support, her strength, her partner. She'd felt so good around him: skin to skin, joined close as two people can be – _oh fuck_. He hadn't even thought of that. Oh _fuck._

"Beckett?" He is really panicked. "Beckett, I'm so sorry, I should never have done that." She jolts into tension beside him and as instantly moves away.

"_Now_ you decide it was a mistake, Castle?" Her voice is cold. "Little bit late, but better late than never, I suppose. Bathroom's that way, if you want to clean up before you leave." What? No no no. He plays back what he said. Oh hell. He's supposed to be _good_ at words.

"No. That's not what I mean. That wasn't a mistake. But I forgot about protection and I'm so sorry and…"

" 'S okay. Pill." Her back is still turned to him. He tugs her gently over so he can see her face again. The pain of anticipated rejection is written over her expression.

"Beckett, that _wasn't_ a mistake. I just… I don't want to push you or for anything to happen that you don't want." There's a softening of the lineaments of her face, though her body is still clenched tight around tension. He leans up on one elbow, looking down at her as she rolls away again, hiding her face from him for a moment. "C'mere." She doesn't move. This time he isn't quite as gentle when he turns her back. "Come here." He pulls her in, and any resistance has collapsed. Now he's got what he wants, Beckett curled softly against him, face in his shoulder, he doesn't do anything else. _No pushing, Rick. She only came round when you stopped pushing._

Castle's petting her. No-one pets her: she doesn't precisely project pettability. She's not sure she wants to be pettable. If she can't be strong, how is she going to hold her father to life? Even if she is strong, she might not be able to, but if she isn't, she won't be able to look herself in the mirror, because she'll know she didn't do her utmost. She shivers: fear of the future tripping up and down her spine.

"What's wrong, Beckett? Cold?" He'd almost said _someone walk over your grave?_ That would have been disastrous. "I'll warm you up." She doesn't react for a few seconds.

Maybe she can be strong all the rest of the time, after this. It's not fair to drag him into the mess her life has become: the mess it's going to be. Liver failure is a messy death: all the literature tells her so, backed up by the wonder of Dr Google. No-one should experience that, if they don't have to. But her father's been sober for another week and more, since the blunt truth, so maybe… maybe. She could deal with the pain: it's the hope that this time it will be different that hurts so when it's betrayed.

There's always the betrayal. Maybe? That's a fallacy. _Maybe_ is so very much more likely to be _not_.

She becomes aware that Castle's large hand is back to running slowly up and down her spine. She shouldn't do this. He shouldn't do this. But neither of them are doing what they should. In this one late evening, it's a time out of reality, where anything can happen. And if she thinks about Castle, she's not thinking about the future, and shortly she won't be thinking at all. Which is the most desirable outcome in all the world, now, simply being dispossessed of mind and thought.

She stretches quite deliberately along his body, rubbing against him like a cat, and the instant answer of his body to hers tells her everything she needs to know about the rest of this evening. The first round had been hard and fast and frantic and over in mere moments, blazing through to completion. This time… can be the same, or different, just as long as she needn't think. She runs her hand over the jut at his hipbone, the hard flesh of his thigh, and lightly around to the front, fingertips dancing tantalisingly over the edges of indiscretion.

"Is that an invitation, Beckett?" Castle purrs into her ear. His hand swoops lower on the next arc, over the curve of her rear, encouraging her leg to curve around his waist, folding his other hand into the back of her head, the soft short hair, just long enough to knot his fingers into and hold her for more soft, slow, drugging kisses: stealing into her mouth and stealing away with her mind and her soul; leaving her lax and laying her down on her back; open and receptive and willing. This time, oblivion will creep over her like fog, silent and all-encompassing. "Open your eyes." _See me. See me, Beckett: the one who can give you what you need._ For now, oblivion. Later, it will be more.

Her eyes open, wide and dark and smudged with the remnants of liner and mascara, the dishevelment of her make-up surprisingly, shockingly seductive when coupled with the depth of the desire in her gaze. He looms over her, bends and kisses her again, a little less soft, a little more searching, his fingers hard as they, too, search the line of her ribs, the sharp edge of hip, the taut quad. Not, yet, the soft centre. That will come later. Oh yes.

He switches from lips and mouth to the smooth skin of her neck, careful not to mark its fragile transparency. He can see the vein pulsing, and avoids it, tracing round to her ear, a point that makes her wriggle, and kisses wetly, a flicker of tongue-tip, a tiny scrape of teeth that leaves sensation but no sting, and she does wriggle again beneath him; her hands firm on his back and trying to pull him down on to her. Not yet. He has plans: plans for this evening and for all the days after.

Right now, however, the only plan is to make her forget her own name. He slides a little downwards, pinning her with his size, her hands free, nibbles delicately along the outcrop of her collarbones, never hard enough to bruise or sting or rouse her from the cashmere cloak of cosseting he's covering her in. Her breathing deepens and the rise and fall of her chest pushes her breasts against him. He doesn't resist the offered temptation: moulding and palming and still so very gentle and slow as he puts lips to her and plays, one and then the other, a little more force, a little soothing, and she moves more definitively under him as he slips further down, the width of his frame enticing her to open wider, sensing the pitch of her arousal change and rise, holding on to his own control and mind so that he can make her lose hers. It's what she wants and needs. _Make me forget_ rings through his mind.

Beckett is quite deliberately losing herself in the feel of Castle's mouth on hers, the tickle of his tongue on that very sensitive point behind her ear that always does it for her, the small sharpnesses and swift soothes along her shoulders; and then he moves to her breasts and she doesn't have to try to lose herself any more: all there is left is sensation. She's never been this sensitive before, and though usually she'd reciprocate, the way he's making her feel and the way in which he's got his bulk over her makes that impossible and he is just pressing down enough that she can't do anything about it without more effort than she is capable of making. It feels so very good, so why change it? She sinks into the quicksand of sensuous sexuality without a whimper. She's never been noisy, in bed.

When his questing mouth descends below the curve of her breasts where his hands are still playing, tip-taps its tongue over her lower ribs and swirls around her navel she gasps and moves and tries to wriggle down so that she can keep his thick hard weight where she wants it, and Castle's big hands arrive, for the first time, around her waist and hips to keep her movement within a more limited confine. She suspects, with a small instinctive portion of what's left of her mind, what he's intending. It's fine, she quite likes that, but she'd much rather he was inside her, filling her up. And then he puts his mouth on her and that preference abruptly drops away. She can't think at all: her hips buck and her legs close on his shoulders and only his hands on her are connecting her to this world and _ahhh_ his mouth and his tongue and _ohhh_ he slips inside her for an instant and then back to circle around over-stimulated nerves and it's too much: she's trying to pull away from the overload of sensation but she can't; she's making sounds she's never made in her life before and he pushes her further and deeper and she's crying out as his wicked, wicked actions shove her into the abyss and the oblivion she sought.

Castle repositions himself and waits with considerable and very masculine satisfaction for Beckett to open her eyes again. That had been astonishing. He would almost think… no. That can't be right. He knows she'd had at least one serious relationship, and looking as she does, surely more. But he could stand her reacting to him like that for a very long time. He cuddles her into his chest and pets her gently until she snuggles in and he can kiss the top of her head and then turn her face up and stroke the line of her cheek below sleepy, hazy eyes.

Beckett, wholly relaxed and incapable of moving from this wrapped-in comfort, as she returns slowly to a form of normality in which the disaster of the rest of her life is presently _not_ featuring, is increasingly aware of Castle's hard arousal against her. She doesn't want to remember reality. Not yet. Not now. She summons a small amount of determination and tugs his head down to hers to kiss him, imparting her own spin to events, pulling him over her in the right alignment so that he's poised perfectly in place, and then she moves slickly, hotly against him and that's all it needs for him to take her in one forceful motion, and then the rhythm of slide and fill and hand and mouth and motion takes over for both of them and they fall together.

Some little time later it occurs to Beckett that Castle will have to leave. She peers at the clock and is surprised that it's still before midnight. The same thought has clearly crossed his mind.

"I should go home."

"You said that earlier."

"Now I really should go home. I can't be out all night." He wants to say _come with me_. He doesn't. It's too pushy, and she won't be able to come anyway. She told him quite explicitly that she isn't in the right place for a proper relationship, and he went ahead and kissed her anyway, so it's his own fault that now he apparently can't get enough of her. It's ridiculous: he can't already be addicted. He's rushing himself, never mind Beckett, and he needs to slow this down. He has plenty time, now. All the time in the world. There's no end of term, no artificial deadlines, no forced endings. He just has to let this play out, be there as she needs him, and remember; always, always remember; not to push further than the pain in her life will let her go.

"I should sleep. Will you come to the precinct tomorrow?" It sounds like a simple question. He still answers the underlying request.

"Yeah. I'll be there." _I'll be there for you_. "Can't miss a chance to go to Canal Street."

* * *

Castle cleaned up and gone, not without a last comforting and slightly possessive embrace, Beckett cleans herself up with the aid of a hot bath and focuses very firmly on the considerable benefit that Castle had handed her as if it were no big deal. Will hadn't made her feel like that, still less the frantic half-relationships she'd had before, still less than that her wild, desperate searching after her mother had…gone. Time out. She thinks that she'll sleep tonight, and having slept, be strong tomorrow, and the days to come.

And, for a day or two, it proves to be so. Canal Street is helpful – _photo_ evidence? That's better than she's ever had before – and it takes them to a warehouse, and in between she manages dinner with her dad who is _still_ sober and tells her he's really, really determined to do it this time. She tells him all the right things and hopes with all of her fractured, blocked-off heart that this time it will be different.

The warehouse is a bust, largely because Castle's idiot ex rings him and Castle, idiot that he is, didn't put his phone on silent. The bad guy escaped, and while she doesn't participate in Espo and Ryan's well deserved and sharply edged ragging of Castle, she isn't going to take any steps to soften it either. The next time, someone might just shoot him on their way out, if he draws attention to himself at a stakeout or a raid. That vest won't save him.

Using his phone app to find the likely next victim, though, might at least save him from the wrath of the cops. Certainly from the wrath of Beckett, because his app has got them to her apartment before she's opened the door to their killer. Beckett likes that. Score one for the good guys.

If only one of them had remembered to _shut_ the damn door before the bad guy walked in and started shooting. The homeowner is safely behind a locked door and if she has any sense is rammed against the wall not the door. Beckett is not. And worse, Castle is also not and she doesn't want to get him killed. She signed up to take risks in the service of the people of New York. He didn't. She gets off another shot which misses and frets about her lack of bullets, until Castle comes up with two good ideas and _no_ crazy theories, which is a good deal better than the usual ratio, and the end result is the bad guy on the floor.

Of course Castle extorts payment for ostensibly saving her life. But she has no real desire to call him "kitten" anyway: she doesn't need reminded of his ex-wife and the joke was rapidly coming to an end. She's had his support when she needed it and it seems very unkind to tease him in a way that would hurt. He's enabled her to stay strong for her dad, and because she can be strong her dad has been better than in a while. He's not healthy, but he isn't self-destructing. She finishes up the paperwork, waves Castle off cheerfully somewhere in the mix, and when she's done rings her dad, intending to invite herself over to make him dinner.

The phone rings out unanswered: landline and then, frantically retrying, mobile too.

* * *

_Thank you to all readers, followers, those who have favourite and reviewers. All of you are very much appreciated._


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17: Wash away the pain**

She's on her way to his apartment, the other end of Manhattan from hers, the moment he doesn't pick up the second redial to each line. She has a key. She's had a key for years. She keeps trying, all the way there: half an hour in the evening traffic, into the Upper West Side, not far from Columbia. She squeezes into the first space she comes to, misuses her police status to prevent being cited for a parking violation and can't bring herself to care, more terrified of why her dad isn't answering than anything else. If she's reprimanded, it's a price she'll gladly pay.

There is no doorman at her father's block, and right now she's very relieved about that. She can't afford the slightest delay. Her heart hammers in her chest, and she takes the stairs because she won't wait for the elevator: has to have the pace under her control. It's only two flights. She reaches his door, raps briskly, hears nothing for the few seconds that are all she wants to wait, and opens with the key that's been out since she came through the stairwell door.

The smell of bourbon punches her in the gut: her father, slumped on the couch with the bottle half empty in front of him and the glass clutched in his hand; TV turned to a rolling news channel to which she doesn't pay attention.

"Dad, _what are you doing_?" she cries, devastated disappointment in each word.

"Katie," he slurs. She takes two fast, hard strides to the table and rips the glass from his hand, the bottle from in front of him, makes for the sink and empties the glass into it before her father has heaved himself up after her. "Mine," he demands. "You can't have it." She's opening it and upending it and he's grabbing for it and trying to wrest it away and he twists with the fox-like cunning of the long-term alcoholic and the bottle falls on to the tiles of the kitchen and smashes and her father is on the floor trying to push the fluid back into the broken bottle and there's blood from his hands from the shards of glass and he's _bleeding_ and weeping and broken and drunk and how can she fix this when the blood isn't slowing at all?

She uses all her strength and muscle to haul him up and force him to stand at the sink and she's cleaning the wounds but they won't stop bleeding no matter how she presses gauze over them and this is well beyond her first-aid abilities. She hasn't time to collapse and cry, no matter how she wants to. She has to get him to the hospital.

Wholly locked down, she does what she has to do: takes him to Presbyterian's Columbia ER, hands him over to the doctors and tells them that he's under the supervision of the liver specialist – she stumbles on the unfamiliarity of _hepatologist_ in her upset, and reverts to simplicity – for alcohol damage. She can't take the pity on their faces, nor the slight twitch of the male nurse's nose as the sharp scent of bourbon hits and registers, and the relief she feels when the medical staff take him away shames her as she sits in the waiting area.

She can only wait till the doctors tell her what's to be done. She gives the financial details in when asked: she has them in her wallet, scant preparation for what might come at any time. He's still insured: that hasn't yet been cancelled, or exhausted, small mercy.

She sits, straight backed, control of her posture feeding control of her emotions, waiting patiently for the medical staff to inform her, to explain the unstoppable bleeding, to tell her what will happen now, tonight, and next, in the days to come. She sits, and waits, and resists the temptation to call Castle, who has his own commitments and responsibilities and who can't help here and now except in his presence. Instead, she calls Lanie, and tells her only that her dad had cut himself when she'd gone over to have dinner with him, so she'd taken him to the ER because it was quite nasty and she thought it might need stitches, and she's got to wait for him. It's not, quite, lying. It is certainly wholly misleading, but with a slightly noisy background and a not-great connection it's enough to fool Lanie. Lanie is happy to talk about miscellaneous cases and matters and nothing in particular, and for tonight that will do.

She's idly staring at the news rolling on the waiting room screen while she's chatting to Lanie (Well, Lanie's chatting. Beckett's putting in occasional comments.) when she sees it.

"What the hell?"

"Kate? What is it?"

"I have to go, Lanie. We can catch up tomorrow." She clicks her phone off and stares at the screen. _Oh fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh Dad. This is on me._ It must have been a really slow news day. The anchor is talking.

"Earlier today an alleged murderer was wounded in a shoot-out in a Manhattan apartment involving celebrity playboy Rick Castle, well known to be following Detective Kate Beckett of the Twelfth Precinct. Mr Castle was apparently unhurt." It's followed by a shot of the perp being hauled off to hospital and a slow shot of both Castle and her exiting the building, looking rather dishevelled and flustered. She supposes bitterly that she should be glad he hadn't been touching her at the time, as he had been mere moments earlier. Her dad must have seen this. _Oh God._ What is she going to do? She can't quit her job in case her father sees the news with her on it. She can't. As if all this wasn't bad enough.

Her thoughts are still circling frantically when the doctor comes out to talk to her. They want to keep her dad in overnight, and reassess him in the morning. She doesn't hesitate before accepting it, and the renewed relief that she won't have to deal with this tonight brings a renewed flush of shame. She agrees that she'll be back at lunchtime tomorrow, to discuss the next steps, and leaves, wrung out and wracked with guilt that saving one person appears to have damned her father.

* * *

Castle is pouring words out into his laptop, deaf and blind to anything and everything around him in the tidal wave of inspiration that's been powered by the adrenaline rush of being in a real gun battle, frightening as it had been, and even saving Beckett's life. Nikki and Rook spill out on to his pages faster than his fingers can keep up, and the pad at his side is bespattered with shorthand notes and scribbles for later scenes. It had been like this in the very beginning: the story clamouring in his head to come out. He'd thought he'd lost it. Seems not. He keeps writing, no editing: that will come later when the words finally sputter and flame out.

"Richard. Richard!" He drags himself reluctantly out of his world at his mother's voice. "Richard, what have you been doing?"

"Mother, what is it? I'm working."

"You're on the news. You and that nice Detective of yours. It says you were in a shoot-out."

_What the hell?_ He pulls up the news on his computer. _Oh shit_. This is not going to make Beckett happy. She's not exactly keen on publicity. He calls her, but the phone is engaged, leaves a short message asking her to call, and goes to make sure Alexis knows that he was in no danger. (He won't have her worried. She's too young to worry about him.)

He goes back to writing, losing himself in the flow of the chapters till the words stop coming. His phone hasn't made a single sound, and when he flexes his fingers and rolls his head around to stretch the cramped muscles in his neck, there are no missed messages or texts. It's nearly eleven, which is not quite too late to call again.

She doesn't pick up.

* * *

Alone in her impersonal apartment, Beckett doesn't hear the chirp of her phone, buried in guilt and unhappiness and the conflict between doing her job and saving her father. Al-Anon tells her she can't save her father, but she doesn't want to believe that: has to believe that she can still do something, anything, to make everything all right. She hasn't found her mother's killer, but she has put that behind her in the current agony of not stopping her father. Eventually, she readies herself for bed, tears that haven't fallen puddling in her eyes, and in automatic habit checks for her phone, fails to find it, finally locates it and notices the missed call. It's too late now to call, and anyway she can't bear to talk to anyone, tonight.

Sleep comes hard, and the nightmares harder. In every one she sees her father's slack, drunk face: his almost-hatred as she takes his only friend away, the blood dripping from his fingers as it runs thin and weak over the back of his hands.

In the morning she's unrefreshed, off her game. Montgomery calls her in after one single comprehensive glance, interrogates the whole of the previous evening from her, and sends her home over her desperate protests that she wants to work, she's happy to work, even, eventually, that she has to, to keep her fears away.

"No, Detective. You're in no state to be out on the job."

"But sir" –

"No. Take today. Deal with your father, and report to me tomorrow before you do anything else. I'll re-assess your fitness for duty then. And Detective Beckett" –

"Yessir?"

"I will not be accepting your resignation, should you offer it. So don't bother. Now, get."

"Yessir," Beckett forces out, between gritted teeth. He watches her very obviously as she packs up her purse and leaves. He's not having her wriggling out of this order.

He won't have his detective being hurt or shot if a …situation… arrives, because she's off her game. No surprise she's off her game, either. That story explains a great deal about the last few days, and, now he thinks back, odd other occasions too. If he looked at her overtime spikes, he is pretty sure that they would coincide with low points in her father's drinking.

He thinks with some relief that it's been a good day to arrive a little early. This discussion wouldn't have been improved if the rest of the team had been there. This way he's got Beckett out before the others arrive. He's just got time, too, to have a look at this news clip.

Well. Well well well. Those relative postures and positions are definitely interesting. There is absolutely nothing improper there at all, but Montgomery is no fool, and that certainly doesn't look like Beckett still abhors Castle. They look surprisingly like a team. In fact, they look… connected. Hmmm. Castle doesn't look as if he's sizing up Beckett for a one-night-stand, either. Not like Montgomery had thought he was in the early days. Hmmm. Given that Beckett normally doesn't change her mind without evidence, he wonders what's happened here.

He doesn't often do this, but Montgomery is curious, and when he's curious, he reverts to type. Type being, in this case, an investigator. It's just so very unlikely that Beckett would allow Castle to get close at all, let alone this fast, given the initial hatred. There must be something more. It occurs to him that he had wondered if there was a history, and then discounted it. Courtesy of his early start, he has a few spare minutes. He justifies it to himself without the slightest difficulty as managing his people and his precinct, and ensuring that he has all the necessary information to prevent problems. Then he performs a quick search on Castle's history, which is, after all, splattered all over the web. Montgomery is no Detective Ryan (for which he thanks his stars – those _ties_!) but he's perfectly capable of using the tools at his disposal.

Castle's history is laid out before him in moments. _How_ many schools? And finally some stability in high school. Ah. Montgomery pulls up Beckett's personnel file. Ah yes. Same high school. One year overlap. History. They had known each other, and it hadn't been pretty. Okay. That'll do for now. But he might have just a little fun with Castle, later on. Let him know that he, Montgomery, is on to him. Beckett's _his_ people, and nobody messes with his people.

When Esposito, and slightly later Ryan, arrive, primed with at least a morning's worth of joshing about TV clips and PR stars, they are deeply disappointed that there's no Beckett to use it on. They're just discussing that when Montgomery calls them both in and informs them that Beckett won't be in today, in tones which do not incline them to ask any questions. When he says that she might not be in tomorrow either, however, the team ethos snaps into place and Esposito, at least, starts interrogating in a voice that is only barely the right side of an insubordination charge.

"Detective Esposito," Montgomery snaps, "this is _my_ precinct, not yours. I don't need your assistance to manage _my_ Detectives." Esposito splutters. "No more questions. Get to work."

Esposito is still frustratedly fulminating when Castle arrives some time later. The first he knows about it is when Ryan looks up and smirks, "Hey, Castle. What's it like being a reality TV star?"

"No different from every other day," Castle ripostes. "I'm a celebrity."

"Better get out of here, then," growls Esposito. "No-one for you to shadow today."

"What's bitten you?" Castle looks more closely at Esposito's black scowl and Ryan's air of worry. "Where's Beckett?"

"Why don't you tell me? You're the one plastered all over the news with her."

"I haven't seen Beckett since I left last evening. Which was before you pair" – _of clowns_ – "did. So what've you done with Beckett?" Esposito looks nonplussed. Before he can retaliate, Montgomery peers out.

"Castle. A word, please?" It might be phrased as a question but it's clearly an order. Castle doesn't disobey. "Shut the door." Uh-oh. "What is going on between you and Beckett?" Not Montgomery too. This is ridiculous.

"Nothing." Nothing that Montgomery needs to know about, anyway. Montgomery raises sceptical eyebrows, but wanders down another line of questioning.

"You didn't disclose that you knew Detective Beckett in high school." _What the hell?_

"I didn't know her well at all. She was a freshman. I was a senior." _I never knew her at all, then, I just thought I did. I still don't, really._ "What has this to do with anything, Roy?"

"I don't want any problems in my precinct. Are you gonna let any history you might have had upset my team?"

"No." Castle is utterly definite about that.

"Good. In that case" – Montgomery smiles – "you can stay. As long as you keep it that way."

Castle escapes as quickly as he can. Intimidating Esposito is one thing. Intimidating Roy Montgomery is quite another, and not something he wishes to try. He might borrow that particular style if Alexis brings some boy home. If it's made him nervous, it should terrify a teen.

Roy aside, he'd be nervous anyway. Beckett didn't return his calls. Beckett isn't here. He bids a distracted farewell to the boys and disappears, thinking furiously. All his thoughts are coalescing around one ghastly possibility: the state of Beckett's father.

He dials Beckett again, and gets voicemail, again, leaves another message, and decides that if this one isn't returned by late morning he's going to go over to her apartment.

* * *

Beckett has decided that staring at her navel and contemplating the miserable truth about her father is not productive. It's taken her an hour of effort to get to that point, and not a few tears have escaped. She'd so much rather have been at work, where she could have drowned her sorrows in the job. But she's not, she can't be, and if she disobeys Montgomery's direct order she will be in all kinds of trouble that she doesn't need. She's got plenty enough troubles without that.

She's not hungry. Even chocolate – even more coffee – doesn't appeal. She changes into shorts and tank and finds her i-Pod: sets it to the heavy bass beat of _Slippery When Wet_ and starts to run, pounding the pavement and thinking only of the stretch and pull and muscle flex of long, hard running: her last resort to find exhaustion. While she's concentrating on the physical effort and her technique she can block out everything else. She has to occupy the time till noon somehow. She reaches Columbus Circle and slows to a walk, takes a loop round the bottom of Central Park, past the Pond, and then back down towards home.

She falls into her apartment physically exhausted. It's a very long time since she's run like that; run to forget, and her muscles are protesting. She stretches to cool down, slowly and cautiously, slides gratefully under a hot shower and stretches some more in the limited space. Fit as she is, she might still ache tomorrow: no matter, she might run some more. Might have to, to forget. She can't force herself on Castle every time she seeks oblivion: that's no way to be. She moisturises and dresses, slacks and a silky t-shirt: casual enough to be comfortable, smart enough to deal with the doctors in a couple of hours' time. Protective make-up, hiding the pallor of her skin. She knows all the tricks to look normal, even when your life is falling apart.

When she's done, she checks her phone, in case the hospital has rung. It has not. Castle has, and she realises that she didn't call him back from last night either. She'd expected that she'd be at the Twelfth, and then Montgomery sent her home. She can call him. She can call him and he'll listen and understand, and then she'll be able to deal with the rest of the day. She doesn't even need to tell him the whole of it: she can use the same limited story that she'd told Lanie. Hearing his voice will be enough to pull her through. She doesn't need or want to burden his world when she's no need or reason to do so.

She dials, and doesn't admit her disappointment when she only gets Castle's voicemail. She leaves brief thanks, and nothing more. Explanations over voicemail are not her thing. Explanations of any sort are not normally her thing.

It doesn't occur to her at any point that Castle might have applied his intelligence to working out why she wasn't in the precinct, and it doesn't occur to her – given that he'd told her with some satisfaction that he'd managed to manoeuvre Meredith back to LA – that he might then decide to come by. After all, he now has nothing to escape. Lost in her own far more serious problems, she hasn't applied any of her own intelligence to the change in Castle's behaviour that has seen him almost constantly present ever since she'd told him about her father. She's accepted it as a comforting blessing, and not thought one inch further than that. She certainly hasn't thought that he might have been using Meredith's presence merely as an excuse. If anything, given the explosive results of proximity and that she's been clear about her own emotional limitations, she'd expect him _not_ to come by, to allow everything to calm down and cool off.

Beckett is, therefore, considerably surprised a few moments later when the doorman rings up – she'd had a few very gentle but pointed words about _no-one_ except her father being allowed up without her being contacted first, right now – and says that there's a Mr Castle here to see her and does she want to let him come up?

"Okay," she says, confused. Why's he here? She puts the kettle on. Might as well share a companionable, comforting coffee, before the hospital. She checks her watch, just to ensure there's time. There is indeed plenty of time. Far too much time, if she didn't now have something – someone – to distract her.

* * *

_Thank you all. Not an AA meeting, I'm afraid. I appreciate all your thoughts._


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18: First blood**

Castle's knock sounds on the door in a couple of minutes.

"Hey, Castle. Didn't expect you. Want a coffee?" Under the banal greeting, though, he hears tension and a worryingly slight note of _I'm glad you're here_. He might have hoped for a little more of the latter.

"I went to the precinct, but you weren't there. I thought you might want some company." She flicks a swift, not entirely convinced glance at him; not unexpected, given her tone, and makes the coffee without comment. Once they're sitting down, he tries again.

"I saw the news clip. It didn't cause any trouble, did it?" He doesn't expect it to have done. Montgomery hasn't struck Castle as susceptible to that sort of nonsense. But there's a sudden and unpleasant silence, and when he casts a glance at Beckett her eyes are suspiciously bright.

She doesn't want to talk about it. She doesn't want to think about the blood streaking down her father's yellowed skin, leaching through the white gauze. But this is Castle, who knows already what is happening, and who – she can tell, he's always been far too clever for her own good – has already worked it out. Something about the way his arm is suddenly around her and is gently pulling her in. She is a detective, after all, despite everything.

"Dad saw the news," she bites out. "Then he saw the bottom of a glass." She has to be bitter, and hard, and not let the awful truth spill out, because if she starts crying now she'll never stop, and she has to be stronger than that. "So I had to go over because he didn't pick up when I called." The arm is tighter, now. "And then I had to take him to the hospital to be checked over so they kept him overnight." Castle plucks her coffee out her hand and pulls her all the way against him. "I need to go back there to find out what's next." She looks up, pain scrawled over her face. "Montgomery wouldn't let me stay at work where I could forget about it till it was time to go." Castle says nothing about that, simply hugs her. She's shivering, again, the skin of her arm chilled under his hand.

"You should have called back," he says, eventually, unable to make it the neutral statement that it should have been. She could have called, and he'd have come. He knows he shouldn't push, but surely she's worked out that he wants to help?

"It was too late to call. I called you back this morning," she adds defensively, and hates that she does. She doesn't have time for this dance. It's not a relationship. She won't be guilt-tripped by Castle. Surely he's worked out that her father comes first? She moves a little away, and picks up her coffee, drains the cup, looks at her watch. "It's time I was going."

Castle notices an absence of request that he come with her, an absence of any commitment to call him, and a remarkable absence of any apparent desire for his presence or help. All of this is rather hurtful, especially when Beckett stands up in a way which makes it appear that his presence is now an imposition, not an improvement.

"Beckett…" he says, unsure where to go after that.

"What?" She's looking for a jacket. "I have to get to the hospital." She doesn't, yet. She has another hour and a half before she needs to leave, but she can't deal with this any more. If the choice is between company and solitude, she'll take the latter, because Castle's already trying to make more out of this than she can cope with. She doesn't have the room to worry about his feelings, or to protect them, both of which would be necessary if he starts down the line of expecting anything from her. She doesn't have the room to worry about her own feelings, and she's long past protecting herself from those.

"If you need anything, you know where I am."

"Thanks." It doesn't sound like she's going to take him up on that offer. (She'd never asked for anything.) She's politely at the door, her own jacket round her shoulders. He takes the unsubtle hint, and makes to leave, past Beckett's locked down face and posture. The door clicks shut behind him. (She'd shut the door and never come out.) He hears the clack of her heels moving away from the door, and then silence. He's turning away to the elevator when he hears something else. It sounds very like a crash. He's back rapping on the door in an instant.

When it's flung open, probably because he didn't stop knocking until it was opened, Beckett isn't even visible. He pushes inside and shuts the door with himself on the right side, this time. There are pieces of coffee cup on the floor, and a puddle of dregs, and a towel in Beckett's hand.

"What happened?"

"I dropped the cup."

"I'll help clear up."

"Don't worry, it'll be fine. I can manage."

"Just let me help. It'll be quicker."

"Castle, just _go away_. Please. I don't have time for this now. I have to get to the hospital. I'll see you in the precinct." She could have hit him, and it would have hurt much less. She doesn't want his help. He leaves, angry with himself and a lot angrier with Beckett.

His hand is on the door to shut it when he realises what he's doing. He's letting her push him away without letting him explain. Not this time. He turns round. She's wiping at the floor, and the shards of china, and suddenly there's a noise of pain and she's looking at a smear of crimson on her hand and she's sobbing much harder than a smudge like that should cause: she shouldn't be crying at all.

Explanations can wait. There's a lot more wrong than he thought from her words and her tone, and he's misunderstood the depth of her worry about her father because she's so _fucking_ locked down and when did he forget that she always minimised absolutely everything? When did he forget not to push? How did he forget that already?

Her father is dying of alcohol abuse, he's in hospital, and she's thinking that he's upset because she didn't ring him. Because that is _exactly _what he sounded like, because that was _exactly_ how he felt: childishly hurt and behaving like a needy, sulky idiot. No wonder she's pushing him away. She told him she didn't have room for a relationship, and she thinks he's looking for one. (He is. But not now. He can wait. He'll have to.)

He's come round behind her, kneeling on a dry patch of floor, pulling her up to the couch and into his lap and she's broken, her father's broken her; she can't stop crying and he has no idea what will help. He'd been worried when she didn't cry about it: he finds he's far more worried now she does.

"Shh, shh," he soothes. "What's the matter?"

"Dad," she chokes. He knew that, now he's thinking with his head not his emotions.

"Tell me about it," he murmurs. _Talk, Beckett. Talking helps. I won't judge_. A few seconds go by, punctuated by a few miserable, formless noises.

"I took the whiskey away. It broke. He cut himself and it wouldn't stop bleeding." She curls into herself, trying and failing to stop the tears. It seems that even Beckett's immense fortress, protecting her from displaying any emotion at all, has been breached. But not for long. He watches as her wall comes back up, she stops the tears, she tries to move away. "I need to clean this up." It's not clear whether she means the floor or the small cut on her finger.

"Just wait a moment. Stay here for a second, till you feel better."_ Lean on me_.

She shouldn't stay in this position. She has to pull herself together and deal, not be overset by a stupid little cut from a broken mug. It's just that the blood on her hand clotting reminds her that the blood didn't clot on his hand when her father cut himself on the whiskey bottle, it just kept running. And she can't deal with Castle wanting something she's _told _him she hasn't got to give.

"I can't." She takes a deep breath. "You want more. You deserve better. I said this already: I can't let my walls down. I can't keep re-running that conversation. The answer doesn't change: this isn't an interrogation and I'm not shading the truth. I haven't time to worry about whether you're upset because I haven't called you back. I can't commit to anything because the only thing I can deal with right now is my dad. When he needs me, I have to be there. Nothing else. No distractions."

"I get that."

"You _say_ you get it, Castle," Beckett says tiredly. "You probably even believe it. But just listen to yourself. _You should have called back_." It sounds worse when she says it, in that small tired voice with misery dammed up behind it. It sounds needy and upset and difficult. "Really? Yeah, maybe I could have called you, after midnight when I finally had time. But I didn't. I had reasons. You've made me feel guilty about not calling you and maybe that wasn't what you meant but it's what you did." _Oh fuck_. He can hear this all starting to go wrong. Beckett's so fragile right now and it's got nothing to do with him at all, except that he's made it worse. "You can be the guy who makes my life easier, or the guy who makes my life harder. Right now, you're the second. So let's just keep this to work, okay? You make that easier."

_What? No! _ No way.

"I _do_ get it. I'm not trying to make your life harder. I'm trying to tell you that you got someone here to listen to you when it's all too much, and I don't care if that's 10 a.m. or 6 p.m. or two in the morning. If you don't it'll all come crashing down on you."

"That's my problem. Don't make it yours."

"Exactly. It's your problem. Not mine. So I'm a neutral party." How does that follow, Castle? "So use it."

She's abruptly too tired for this fight. She's too tired to argue any more. She's told him twice: it's on him now if he isn't listening. Just like before, just like turning up in the precinct on the Tisdale case, just like how he started shadowing her, he's worn her down, eroded her resistance. But she can set limits on this. She can make it clear what he's in for.

"Okay, Castle. Done. But here's the deal. If I decide I need someone to listen, I'll call you." He's won. She's agreed that she'll call him and he's won. "If I don't, or don't return calls, or don't want visitors; you don't argue, because I can't deal with it" – he hears _with you_, or maybe _with anything_, and takes the warning – "if you do." She looks down at the cut and dried blood on her hand. "Right now, I can't even deal with a scratch that would barely make a toddler cry."

"Let me. I've had plenty practice with scrapes on toddlers." Castle stands up and tugs Beckett gently in the direction of her bathroom. "I don't have any Mickey Mouse Band-aids, though. I always used to have a couple in my wallet for Alexis." Beckett makes a face.

"I don't think that would be appropriate. I don't need a Band-aid." She turns round to the sink and starts to rinse her hands. In the mirror, she can see Castle looming behind her. He looks oddly protective. Traces of red trickle down the white porcelain of the sink and into the drain as she rubs over the scratch. It's horribly like the trickles of thin blood over her father's hand. She shivers. Castle puts a hand on her waist, but when she doesn't lean back into him drops it again.

"I can't," she whispers. "I can't break now. I have to get to the hospital." She looks back at her finger. The cut is pathetically small, now it's cleaned up. "It's fine. See?" She holds up her hand, only for Castle to take possession of it and inspect the graze.

"One more thing, Beckett." Her lips are already forming _huh?_ when he kisses the cut. "There," he says smugly. "Kissed better." It's so peculiarly child-like – Castle-like – she can't even object. In fact, it's sufficiently silly to bring a little lightness to the dark day.

"Castle," she starts, and stops again. This is putting herself right back in the line of fire. "I have to get to the hospital. I _will_ call you, if I need to," she finishes in a rush, before she can think better of it.

Castle is already moving towards the door before she's picked her jacket up again. Before he opens it, though, he stops, waits for Beckett to come level with him, catches her, and hugs her briefly close. He doesn't try to kiss her. He's made one almost-fatal mistake today, and adding another would be terminal.

He has to stop pushing her. He just doesn't know how, because pushing had always – has, until now – worked. With Katie then, or Beckett six weeks ago; his writing, his success; pushing has got him what he wanted. Now it won't, and he has to row back from the waterfall. He _knows_ this: he's known it for a week. He has to stop rushing both of them.

* * *

Her father's room is white, and sterile, and clinical, and against the pale crisp sheets he looks small, and yellowed, and old. And frightened. When he notices Beckett he looks like a small child caught in some naughtiness: a little sly, a little embarrassed, a lot scared of being taken to task. She cringes internally. Now she's the bogeyman. She kisses his cheek and hugs him very carefully, shocked by the papery dryness of his face, the thinness of his shoulders.

She's more shocked when it becomes clear he has no idea why he's in the hospital. He doesn't remember last night, and she doesn't know how to explain. Eventually she says that he'd hurt himself and the doctors had recommended he stay in overnight; and he seems to be content with that. She makes small talk about nothing in particular and hopes with all her might that he doesn't remember the news clip.

Finally the doctor – the same one as she had seen each time – arrives and rescues Beckett.

"Miss Beckett." She lets it pass, too unhappy to care. "Your father has been lucky. The cut is not too bad, and will heal, with time. He should be able to deal with the dressing himself." _Only if he's sober_, thinks Beckett acidly, and feels sharp guilt wash over her on the thought. "However, the alcohol" – Beckett winces, and winces again at the expression of pity in the doctor's eyes – "that he has ingested has further damaged him. I strongly suggest that he stays in hospital for another day or two while I run some more tests. You'll be able to visit him every evening."

"But you ran all the tests a couple of weeks ago. Why do you need to run more now?" The specialist's eyes flick away from her, then back.

"Your father doesn't remember last night. He may have a build-up of toxins which are affecting his memory. In addition, he has passed some blood. I am concerned about his overall prognosis. I need to run the tests in order to decide whether his current medication is working or whether we need to make changes. It might be appropriate to drain fluid from his stomach, to make him more comfortable." She knows that the specialist is simplifying for her benefit. She's no doctor.

"Okay." The doctor looks sympathetically at her, though it has the same impersonal overtones that Beckett herself has to apply when knocking on a stranger's door to start a conversation with "I'm sorry to tell you…"

"Miss Beckett, as we discussed previously, your father's condition is very serious. If he cannot stop drinking" –

"I should prepare myself. That's what you're telling me, isn't it?" The doctor nods.

"I'm sorry." He leaves. Beckett sits in the quiet room for a moment, struggling for control. This is not new news. She's already heard it: she's already had more than a fortnight to come to terms with it. She pulls control down like steel shutters and returns to her father's bedside, to pretend that she isn't wondering for how much longer she'll be able to talk to him. Much later, after trivial conversation during which Beckett notices her father's slight shortness of breath, the pull of the bedcovers over his distended stomach, his tiredness; he finally falls asleep and she's released from her penance to go home, placing a soft sad kiss on his cheek before she goes, as if she's the parent and he the child.

She makes it all the way home without breaking down, to her clean pale sterile apartment which contains no memories or pain. She keeps it deliberately uncluttered. Her memories are painful enough without inviting them in. She ought to do something: she ought to eat, or read, or run, or shower. She does none of those. She only sits, staring into nothing in the early evening.

Eventually, she thinks that she could do one thing for her father. She could go and ensure his apartment is clean – and not incidentally, she could ensure that there is no liquor in it. She knows how to conduct a thorough search of a suspect's apartment. Might as well use her skills to some effect, even if her father isn't a suspect.

So that's what she does. It's not pleasant. The smell of stale bourbon is heavy when she opens the door, and the first thing she does is open every window and internal door. Then she puts everything to the back of her mind and concentrates on cleaning up: the floor, to remove the broken glass and residual stickiness of the spilt whiskey; then his bedroom, to change the linen; then the bathroom, trying not to think about the meaning of the traces of blood she sees. Thinking about it will only hurt. She hates cleaning, but it's a tangible way of showing that she cares. It might be the only way that her father appreciates. He certainly won't appreciate her next actions.

She conducts an extremely thorough search of the entire apartment: every cupboard and cabinet, every crevice and cranny; every closet. She searches his shelves and inside his shoes; his nightstand and under the pillows and mattress. She knows all the tricks, and when she's done she looks miserably at the haul of little bottles and bigger ones. Every drop of it goes down the sink, rinsed away to leave not even a trace of the smell. No temptation. But she knows that it's only temporary: a sandcastle against the Atlantic tide.

The flat cleaned, freshened and stripped of even the smallest drop of alcohol, Beckett secures it again before she leaves, a little after nine. She can't shake the feeling that she's stripping away her father's life.

* * *

_Thank you to all reviewers and readers._

_To the guest reviewer: this is S1. Castle hasn't been around long enough for Espo to recognise any good qualities, especially when Espo was himself bitterly and unpleasantly jealous. In canon, at this stage, Castle was an arrogant ass. Beckett, now, 6 weeks from their fight, is recognising his qualities. Montgomery is what in the UK we would call "stirring it"._


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19: Running over the same old ground**

She'd come up on the subway: no point in pushing her non-existent luck by trying to park nearby: she'd be sure to be cited. She's most of the way back down when it occurs to her that if she only went one stop further she could drop in on Castle in a setting which will ensure that she can't indulge in the insanely explosive reactions of the beginning of the week. If she goes home, however, she will call him and he will come by and it would all be unbelievably good.

But it would all be unbelievably wrong.

She can't stop herself wanting to see Castle, whatever she'd said about nothing to give. She should be stronger, she should play fair. But she can't. The last time she'd let herself lean on him, it had given her strength for the next stage. She needs that again. But she can keep it to comfort; she can keep it away from the physical connection; she can keep it to something where no-one can get hurt. She won't play with his emotions, and she won't pretend that there's more on offer than there is, however much she'd like to do so and take whatever more there would be.

By the time the subway's reached the stop she's almost talked herself into turning round and going home: second-guessing all her thinking. But she's here, and what's the alternative anyway? Staring at her walls and descending into a morbid slough of despond? If she can just bootstrap herself up a bit she'll be able to go to work tomorrow and then she'll have something else to think about, to concentrate on.

Castle's doorman clearly has no instructions to call up, or indeed to ask any questions. Then again, her shield is very visible. She generally finds that that prevents delay, and here is no exception. It hadn't been an exception last time, either.

And now she's in front of his door, still vacillating. But she's here, and it's just another variant on _I'll call if I need to._ She needs to, but it's safer to be here than risking that incendiary connection that could blaze up if they were in the privacy of her apartment. They would both be there in her apartment, too. If she were to call, he would come, because she wouldn't be able to stop herself asking and he wouldn't even hesitate before he arrived. That is far too dangerous. It – he – could become addictive very quickly. He's hard enough to resist now, when she's fighting a last-ditch battle to keep some semblance of integrity and not just use him. However much he says he's happy to be used, he wouldn't be happy. No-one would be.

She hesitates again, then knocks.

A moment or two later, just as she's about to turn tail and run, the door is opened. Castle regards her with gape-jawed amazement.

"Beckett!" He recovers a modicum of suavity. "Come in. Wine? Coffee? Ice-cream?" He waves her straight through the deserted main room to install her in his study. It doesn't appear, to Beckett's casual glance, to have changed in any way from the last time she was here, talking about the frozen-body case. This time, though, she's not pacing, or perched on the desk. She's been manoeuvred into a soft, wide armchair. "Wine or coffee?" Castle asks again.

There's a mug on the desk, and... oh. His laptop is open and it looks like he's been working.

"I've interrupted you," she says, miserably. "I shouldn't have come."

"I was procrastinating," Castle admits. "Waiting for genius to spark." Beckett quirks an eyebrow. She can't let that pass. "All I needed was some inspiration." He smirks. "My muse to show up." Beckett growls.

"Don't call me your muse, Castle." She scowls fearsomely.

"Okay, Calliope." Beckett's current intensity of glare could level quite large cities.

"I have a gun and I _will_ use it on you if you make any sort of references to muses at all. Or I will break a stone tablet over your head. Poetic justice."

"You got it?"

"Educated, Castle. Remember?" Ah. Yes. Let's not go there, Beckett. Those are not good memories.

"That is so cool." Beckett still doesn't look impressed. She does, however, look a lot less fraught, and more familiarly irritated. It's a considerable improvement on the white, drawn look that she'd worn when he opened the door.

"D'you want a drink?"

"Coffee, please." The mere thought of drinking, or even seeing, any alcohol is totally abhorrent.

"Sure. You stay put and I'll fix it." When she starts to stand up, she's gently pushed back down. "Sit, Beckett. My coffee machine is very temperamental. She doesn't like strangers."

"She?" Castle grins wickedly.

"She. Needs lots of expensive accoutrements, has odd moods, and never does what I expect. Obviously female."

"Sexist much?" snarks Beckett. "That sounds more like you than any woman I've ever met."

"Observation." She looks like she's about to twist his ear. "You've _met_ my mother. So I named the machine after her. Martha the Machine." Beckett is stymied, and resorts to a growl at Castle's smugly departing back.

He returns shortly with coffee for each of them. Beckett is curled in the armchair with her feet tucked up under her. She looks very tired. Drained. The hospital has clearly not been a pleasant experience. He wants to kiss her better. He wants to make her forget her troubles, in a way he knows will work. The fact that he'd enjoy it immensely too is, amazingly, only a very secondary consideration. He settles, temporarily, for perching on the arm of the chair and putting his arm round her slumped shoulders. It doesn't seem unwelcome. He wraps a warm hand over the top of her arm and exerts all his self-control not to ask any questions at all. _Give her time, Rick. She came here_. He wonders why she came, rather than called. Maybe that will be revealed.

She's downed half her mug before she says anything, but since she also hasn't moved away from him Castle thinks that the silence is not such a bad bargain.

"They kept him in. More tests." The words are each chopped short. That does not sound good at all. "He doesn't remember last night. I should be pleased about that, because it means he doesn't remember the news." Castle winces, and waits for the next part of the story. It takes a long time to arrive. "I went to sort out his apartment." She stops dead. "And to search it." It takes everything he has not to react. "I searched my own dad's apartment for booze." She stops again. "And I found it. So I poured every last drop down the drain." There's a horrible space before her next words. "What sort of a suspicious, mistrustful daughter am I? The first thing I thought of was that cleaning would be an excuse to search." Her shoulders jerk convulsively, but her voice doesn't change at all.

"I thought he was sober. Now I don't know. He could have been drinking all the time and hiding it. Maybe that's why they need to do more tests." She pulls even further into herself. "I can't stop him." She takes a long drink of coffee, finishing the mug. "I just needed to talk to someone. Offload. I'm sorry. It's the same thing all over again. Me repeating the same old things. I'd better go home now." Somehow, though, standing up isn't happening. Possibly because the arm previously around her shoulder is now over her shoulder and, in a rather gently unobtrusive way, holding her in place.

"You don't need to go yet. You don't need to talk any more, unless you want to. Or you can talk about the weather. Or..."

"Or?"

"Or I could just hug you. Hugs make everything better." She doesn't actually get a chance to object. Castle has hoisted her up, slipped underneath her and brought her back down exactly as described, encouraging her to pillow her head on his shoulder and wrapping her in. "There," he says smugly, when she doesn't argue. "Told you so."

"Very unattractive, Castle," Beckett tries to snark, and fails to manage even a tinge of sharpness. It does make it better. It's ridiculously comforting, being tucked into a big frame. And since her detective skills have detected that she isn't going anywhere, she might as well allow herself to be eased and enjoy it. So she does. It couldn't be described as snuggling – she doesn't snuggle. Not ever – or even particularly relaxed, but it's no longer the clawing, bone-deep tension of earlier, either.

Castle would describe it as snuggling, though possibly only because he has a very wide definition of snuggle where Beckett is concerned, including that she is merely on his lap with his arms round her. She's quite still. He doesn't break the moment with words, though he is again wondering why she showed up, rather than ringing. If she had rung, he would happily have gone over. Still, the main point is that she actually contacted him at all, never mind how. That is very hopeful. That is very hopeful indeed.

Another thing that is very hopeful is that he has now been cuddling Beckett for some moments and she hasn't snarked any more, pulled away, pushed him away or started – or much more likely, pretended not – to cry again. He can give her what she needs. He can, and he is. And now it seems that Beckett recognises that too, which is all very much better than matters had looked this morning. It is a little dispiriting that they are not in some quiet, private place, where he could show her just how well he can provide what she needs, but that will come. As would… _not a helpful thought, Rick_.

He compromises by taking one of her slim hands and stroking it gently. When Beckett doesn't object to that either, he carries on, running his thumb over the fine skin at her wrist and the pulse point beneath. Her stillness takes on a softer aspect; her breathing more relaxed. That's working, Castle thinks contentedly, and carries on. After a little more time, there's an answering movement. He is entirely sure it's unconscious, and does nothing whatsoever to show that he's noticed, such as moving his hand to his cheek, or tipping her chin up. And certainly not kissing her.

It's all going just beautifully, right now, and he can simply let it play out. If he can do that, take tiny steps and wait, give her what she needs and only that, she'll come closer. After all, she once did, has, and therefore will. A flash of memory: outside study hall, the day he'd said sorry for pushing, and asked if he could walk her home again, and she'd – just for once – reached out to take his hand, and fire had sprung into life between them. Just like it had two weeks ago, just like it had three days ago. So if he only waits for her, it will all work out. Show her what she can have, leave the cards on the table, and soon enough she'll pick them up. Even now, she's already half the way there.

The slow, smooth, somehow sensuous stroking is now having much the same effect on Beckett as she imagines that it would have on a cat. Not that she is inclined to purr. Not her style. The petting is very soothing, and while the dull agony of her father's decline and fall is not removed, it is set at some distance: not as great a distance as three nights ago, when for a short time it had been wholly obliterated, but yet it is less sharp, less immediate. This had actually been a really sensible idea. As long as she doesn't ask for too much. No chance of that, though. Castle knows exactly where she stands: she's spelt it out in flaring neon letters. Thus far, and no further.

_Until_, she abruptly thinks. Until she knows the worst. After that, she won't be in this walled-off limbo, life on hold, sitting death-watch at her father's side, grieving for the ten years of his wasted life. Till now, till it's all too likely to reach an end, it's merely been a periodic problem; now, it's all encompassing. Tomorrow, perhaps, she'll know more: a prognosis, a timescale; and then she can – try to, she reminds herself – plan. Starting, painful as the thought might be, with sorting out a shift pattern so that she can cling on to the one thing that's saved her every time: drowning herself in work.

With work, she thinks, carefully circumscribing her expectations, will come Castle. She won't need to turn up on his doorstep, he certainly won't turn up at hers, and she won't be succumbing to the temptation to ask him over because, on previous evidence, she'll see him every day at the precinct. There, on her own territory, she needn't feel as if she's only taking: he needs to do research and she gets the comfort of his presence. Fair trade, win-win.

It doesn't occur to Beckett that Castle might have a very different view of the balance between giving and taking. Specifically, that he is perfectly content, for now, to give Beckett everything she needs – as opposed to the tiny crumbs she's asked for – because that way he is also taking what he wants; or needs, which in this instance includes more inspiration than he's had in ten years; the fun of being around the precinct, the boys and work-Beckett – and the sure and certain knowledge that, however hard Beckett is trying to tell him otherwise, that there is still a whole lot of something between them. She's trying to protect him, and that's all terribly noble, but it's wholly unnecessary. He'll take it slowly, he'll be there, and _both_ of them will get what they want and need.

Of course, it helps enormously that she's been completely up-front about her position. Unmistakably up-front. Even if he had nearly screwed it all up. He has no excuse: she was crystal clear.

So he is going to be the guy who makes her life easier. Everywhere.

He keeps stroking softly over her hand and wrist: no pushing, no demands, nothing but comfort; she's still, however faintly, responding: nestling in and so very slowly relaxing further. She's deep in her own thoughts, and the play of expression and occasional grimace over her face doesn't incline him to think that any of those are particularly pleasant or hopeful, but she's _here_, she's in his embrace, and whatever she needs, she's come to him to provide it. Gradually, the arm round her shoulders closes over her, encouraging her to tuck her head further into his own broad shoulder, and the hand attached to it begins to stroke softly on its own account, unconsciously synchronised with the hand holding hers.

Far too soon for Castle's taste, but quite considerably later than he'd expected, Beckett comes out of the half-dozing state she'd slipped into.

"Sorry, Castle," she apologises. "I'm not exactly good company. I should have gone home."

"I can cope," he grins. "I can't say I'm flattered by the soporific effect I seem to have on you, but I'll get over it." _No pushing_. He doesn't say that she can stay in his arms for the rest of the night, if she wants to. He compromises. "You can fall asleep on my shoulder any time."

"I'll bear that in mind," Beckett says, with a hint of mischief, "whenever I run out of Nytol." Castle makes a horrible face at her and sticks his tongue out for good measure. Beckett produces something that actually might be a close cousin to a real grin and starts to rearrange herself to stand up. "I should go home." She looks at her watch. "It's nearly eleven." For an instant Castle thinks that she's going to slump back into him, but then Beckett pulls herself together again and rises. Perforce – and courtesy of his ground-in manners – Castle stands too.

"Do you need a cab? The doorman will get you one, or I can ring the car service."

"It's fine, Castle. I've got my – oh. I don't. I haven't got my gun." She pats her hip frantically. "What did I do with it?" She never loses track of her gun. "Did I have it when I got here?"

"No." Castle shakes his head. "Definitely not. I'd have noticed." He thinks for a swift second. Beckett's anxiety level is rising by the instant. "You weren't at work today. Did you put it on at all?"

"I was. I was there first thing, till Montgomery sent me home. I must have had it."

"So what did you do at home? What do you usually do when you get home from work?"

Beckett stops and thinks for herself, rather than panicking. Panicking is pointless. _Think, Kate_. Every evening, she gets in, takes off her badge and gun, and locks them away in the nightstand.

"You didn't have it on when I came round this morning," Castle suddenly says.

"I went running," Beckett says distractedly, still frantically running through her actions. "I changed and went running." Her face clears. "I put it away when I changed." She looks massively relieved. "Thanks. I was really beginning to worry." She smiles. "I'd better go. Thanks, Castle. I'll see you tomorrow."

"One last thing, Beckett, before you go." He's walking with her to the door, not touching her, till he turns her into him and hugs her. She makes the mistake of looking up, and he bends the fraction that's all he needs to kiss her. It was supposed to be a gentle goodnight kiss, to take away the last of her anxiety; to keep away her demons. _This is a bad plan, Rick_. It surely is. Because kissing her here is just as explosive as kissing her in her own apartment and she's duelling with him for control of this kiss and open to him and he's got his hand in her hair and she's got both hands round his neck and he is _not_ doing this again. Not here, not now. Not with his family here.

Nor, it seems, will she. She's pulled back and let go: standing in the circle of his arms, slightly confused, heavy-eyed. Her hand is on the door, turning the handle, opening it.

" 'Night, Castle," she blurts, and leaves. Flees.

"Till tomorrow, Beckett," he's left projecting into the space where she'd been.

* * *

Beckett shows up in the precinct at her usual time, hardly full of the joys of summer, but less obviously unhappy than yesterday. It doesn't stop Montgomery summoning her very shortly after he's arrived.

"Are you okay, Detective Beckett?"

"Yessir." Montgomery peers at her very closely and very obviously. She doesn't flinch.

"Hmmm. We'll see," he says meaningfully. "You can stay here, for now. But you keep me posted, okay?"

"Sir?"

"Yes?"

"I'd like to talk to you about my shifts."

"Okay, Beckett. Do you want to reduce them, while you need to spend time with your father? That'll be fine. How do you want to do this?"

"Er… not exactly." She takes a deep breath. "Can you put me on extra?" she rushes out.

"What?"

"Can you give me extra shifts? Please?"

It all starts to go downhill from there. Montgomery thinks – and says, bluntly – that Beckett's gone mad.

"Sir, I have to do something. I can't just sit at home and worry. I need to work."

"Beckett, I am not giving you extra shifts just so you can work yourself into a breakdown. How's that going to help anything? You do not get to die of overwork on my watch." He is not pulling her out a different rabbit hole this time. He's done it once, and he's not doing it again. Beckett has to deal with this another way. Montgomery becomes aware that there is a reasonably interested audience looking at his office, composed of Ryan, Esposito and Castle.

"But _sir_…"

"No. You can do your usual shifts. I will monitor your overtime, and if I think I need to I will order you to go home." He looks faintly sympathetically at his detective. It doesn't prevent the force behind his next sentences. "I expect you to obey orders, Detective. You won't like the alternative."

"Yessir," Beckett grits out.

"Dismissed." She leaves. The hard, sharp clack of her heels on the floor betrays her mood.

Montgomery sighs. He hates doing that – and it's not as if he couldn't use the extra manpower. But if he lets Beckett take extra shifts she'll never go home, and the results will be disastrous. It's the best thing for her. He just wishes he felt better about doing it.

He looks out his window and surveys his bullpen. Then he surveys it again, much more closely, stopping at Beckett's desk with its added chair and writer. Well now. He'd forgotten yesterday's illuminating news clip, temporarily. Maybe he needn't feel guilty after all.

Because that there writer looks very like he's trying to be the very best source of distraction Beckett could have.

* * *

_Thank you to everyone. Due to the site issues yesterday (during UK time, anyway) if I have failed to answer your review I am very sorry but I haven't received it, so I'm thanking you here._


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20: Call me maybe**

As Castle wanders out the elevator into the bullpen he notices Ryan and Esposito with their eyes beadily riveted to Montgomery's office and its firmly shut door. Since the blind is open, however, it's pretty easy to spot the discussion that's going on inside it. Even if the words are inaudible, the tone and body language are unmistakable. Montgomery is laying down the law, and Beckett is very unhappy about it.

"What's going on?" he asks.

"No idea. Came in and that was already started."

"Whatever it is, the Captain's in charge. Beckett'll just have to suck it up." Esposito's tone is tainted by the dressing-down Montgomery had given him yesterday just because he'd been worried about Beckett. At least she's in today.

Castle just shrugs, and makes his way to the break room to start the coffee machine. He can't imagine Montgomery letting that discussion run much longer, or, despite his easy-going exterior, allowing insubordination. He also can't imagine that Beckett is going to emerge in anything other than an unhappy mood. Coffee, though not the panacea for all ills, is at least an improvement on no coffee, and it's something he can do for her without the risk of being shot or maimed, not necessarily – or even most likely – by Beckett. Esposito is still regarding him as if he's a half-trained dog, liable to cause trouble and leave a mess anywhere he goes.

Beckett stalks into the break room looking ready to shoot first and not ask questions at all. Castle sizes her mood up in one comprehensive and very luckily unnoticed glance and gestures at the filling mug. "Coffee?"

"Please," Beckett replies, ingrained manners winning over a strong desire to scream and throw things. Mostly at Montgomery's unhelpful head. It wouldn't be professional. It wouldn't be in control. And it will be far more satisfying to go and punch hell out the heavy bag in the gym upstairs and imagine Montgomery's face under every strike. Since Castle's made her coffee, however, she'll drink that first.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine." There's a short and gaping silence, into which Beckett is clearly intended to fall. _Liar_ is written as clearly across Castle's face as 12th Precinct is on the outer door of the building. She declines the bait, and sips at her coffee. She wants to gulp it down and let the heat in the liquid warm her bone-deep chill at the future. She has to get back some control. It's all wholly out of control. Her dad, her not-a-relationship with Castle, and now she can't even control everything through working till she drops with exhaustion.

"Okay," he says eventually, when it becomes clear that his interrogative silences are useless in the face of Beckett's far greater experience and technique.

The day passes extremely slowly. Questioning Ryan and Esposito to gain colour for his characters soon palls, Beckett informs him that she's going to do some training and disappears for the best part of an hour, returning in no more happy mood than when she left, and there is no new body. After a while he gives up and goes home. Beckett's not in a state where she can be amused or irritated by him playing the clown; and he can hardly hold her hand and hug her in the precinct.

Beckett gets through the day and leaves only shortly after shift ends, driven out by Montgomery's minatory stare, strengthening with every moment that passes. She makes her way to Presbyterian to visit her father, who is pleased to see her but doesn't seem to be any better. She puts on a brave face and tries not to look at the machines and tubes tucked around the room. He may not be attached to any of them, but their presence is not reassuring. It's all too possible that he soon will be. She manages to make conversation on neutral, unthreatening topics for quite some time, but at last the silences become longer than the sentences and her father's eyes start to close and with shameful relief Beckett realises that it's time she left him to the care of the nurses and the doctors. His specialist hasn't called her, so presumably the tests haven't come back yet. That is also not reassuring.

Tonight she goes home. She resolutely does not think that she could drop in on Castle. He's been around most of the day, and she wasn't exactly sociable. She'll just go home. Eat. She should eat dinner. She should rest. Read, or watch a movie, maybe run through her yoga forms. Relax. She really tries, but all that happens is that she gets a few minutes into anything, or takes a few bites of dinner, and all her worries come rushing back. If she were at work, this wouldn't have happened. She frets for another while, desperately trying to take her mind off her father. She's still telling herself that she is _not_ going to impose on Castle. She should call Lanie, if she's going to call anyone. It's too late to call anyone. It's too late to call Castle.

She wants to call Castle.

She doesn't call Castle.

She doesn't call anyone. Eventually, she falls asleep.

* * *

The next couple of weekdays progress in much the same way. Beckett goes to work, leaves work, visits her father. The tests have been inconclusive, and he's discharged, with an outpatient appointment schedule. He doesn't mention the absence of alcohol in his apartment, and neither does Beckett. Castle shows up every day, complaining about the lack of interesting – or indeed any – cases, and then wandering home again having achieved little except assisting Beckett to a wholly excessive consumption of caffeine. She doesn't call round, she doesn't call his phone. Sticking to her self-imposed limits and not using him to provide comfort and display feelings that she doesn't feel able to reciprocate becomes harder by the day, but he's there in the daytime and she makes that do. She is not going to get sucked into the physical attraction – again – when she can't give more.

Castle feels that Beckett is slipping away into a small lonely dark world, but he's not sure how to solve it. She's pleased to see him, he knows that: she smiles very sincerely when he turns up, and she accepts coffee and trivial discussions with gratitude and grace; but she won't ask for anything and day by day her eyes are a little more tired and her face a little more drawn. He's fairly sure she isn't eating properly; he's certain she's not talking to anyone about anything, and every time her phone rings she jumps.

Four days in Castle's had enough. Beckett's a walking, talking wreck and she may not be asking for anything but that doesn't mean he can't offer. And this time, he's going to hers, since for whatever reason she won't show up at his. He'd really thought that after she'd come by a week ago that she'd realised that he'd be there for her, but she hasn't called and she hasn't come round again and it really doesn't seem like she's understood that he _wants_ to be there for her.

"How's things?" he asks quietly, over yet another cup of coffee, late in the day. Ryan and Esposito are conveniently out of earshot. Beckett shrugs dispiritedly.

"Fine." _Yeah, right, Beckett._ _Fine like any fatal disease is fine_.

"Want to go for a drink tonight?"

"No thanks. Seeing my dad."

That's what Castle needed to know. Okay, so she'll be out till maybe nine, he guesses. With a little careful organisation – for which read his mother being in – that should work quite nicely. If he goes over around nine-thirty, he can spend an hour or so providing a listening ear and a comforting hug. He'll make it better. He just has to remember not to kiss her. Or at least not kiss her on the lips. Or if he does, to control himself. He's an adult. He can do that.

He meanders home. It's not like he's got much to think about at the precinct, and if he starts writing – which is the only thing he wants to do that doesn't involve Beckett in some capacity – he'll not stop till well past midnight, and he won't go anywhere. In Beckett's tired, dragged-down face, he sees a whole history that he can turn to his own story: nothing to resemble her story, but an inspiration. His Beckett, his muse.

At nine-thirty on the dot, he's at Beckett's block. It's the doorman for whom he'd signed the book, conveniently, and with some fast talking and outright bribery (a signed first edition: it always works) he manages to have himself let up without a warning phone call.

"What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you."

"Why? You saw me at the precinct."

He doesn't answer, simply sweeps her into him and keeps her there. The hard tension he's watched grow all week is very obvious in her stiff-set shoulders, but as he holds her close it eases slightly, until she leans in.

"That's why. Can't do that in the bullpen." He smiles a little. "You needed it. You wouldn't ask, but you needed a hug. Or ice-cream, but that might have melted if you weren't in." He hasn't let go of her. Barefoot, she's balanced neatly against his shoulder. She still fits perfectly into him, extra height notwithstanding. (She used to be small and soft and cuddly. Now she's none of those things.)

"I'm _fine_," says Beckett exasperatedly. But she doesn't deny that she needed a hug. And not for the first time, her actions don't precisely match her words. Her words indicate a distinct lack of desire to be held. Her actions indicate something rather different. She isn't taking any steps to move. The disconnect doesn't stop Castle sighing at her, rather obviously and theatrically.

"What, Castle?"

"You're not fine. I can tell," he says, with an air of one who has made a great discovery.

"And how might you tell?" Beckett sounds even more exasperated than a second ago. She is quite obviously expecting some commentary on how thin, tired or stressed she looks, or variations on that rather insulting (though perfectly true) theme.

"You haven't offered me coffee," Castle says plaintively. "I've come all the way across town to see you and you haven't even offered me coffee. You must be sick."

Beckett snorts inelegantly, but relaxes further now that he isn't trying to comment on her health or mental state. She is really very relieved that he's shown up. Staring at the walls moping is not improving anything, nor is it providing her with any practical ways to help her father or cope with the situation. Being supported (quite literally) may not be solving any problems but it's certainly a very nice feeling. Though possibly that's nothing to do with the supportive embrace and everything to do with the scorching physical attraction between them. In which case she should really stop this. She just doesn't want to. Still, it will all be perfectly manageable as long as she doesn't give in to her surging desire to kiss him. She's an adult. She can do that.

"So let me get this straight. You weaselled your way past my doorman – was it Joe?" Castle nods. "You bribed him with one of your books, didn't you?" Castle's ears turn pink. Beckett sighs deeply. "He has no taste in literature." Castle squawks. "Then you arrive here, grab me – I suppose I should be grateful that you didn't pick me up like some caveman, hmm? – and then demand coffee?" But there is a tiny grin quirking at the edges of her mouth. "And complain about its absence? Not to mention that I can't make you coffee because you're stopping me reaching the kettle. Though since you haven't asked nicely I don't see why I should." The grin is fairly full blown, now. Or at least more full blown than at any time for a few days.

"I could let go," Castle replies. But he doesn't let go. "Or I could do this," and he leaves one arm round Beckett's waist and perambulates to the kitchenette. "There. Perfect solution to both problems. Now please may I have some coffee?"

"What problems? I didn't have a problem." She looks faux-sympathetically at him. "_You_ have problems." Castle ignores that, since she's only winding him up. His only problem is the lack of Beckett in his life outside the precinct.

"My lack of coffee and your lack of hugs. It's not fair not to feed me coffee. I'd think you didn't like me any more." He widens his eyes at her appealingly. "It wouldn't be fair not to hug you. You'd feel neglected." Beckett rolls her eyes in a way he hasn't seen all week, and stretches to put the kettle on.

"Happy now?" Castle nods at her.

"Yeah, thank you." Well, mostly. He does have another problem. But right at this precise moment saying _I want to kiss you_ is not a good plan. Even if he does. Even if Beckett is still within the curve of his arm and tucked against him and not objecting to any of these very satisfying actions at all. Because coffee poured over him would really not be a good look. _Wait a little, Rick_.

Coffee and Beckett repatriate themselves to the couch, so when Castle does the same and sits down he makes sure that he's still got her cuddled in close. If she's still not complaining about his actions, he's missing something about her reasoning for not calling and not coming round. He drinks his coffee and ponders quietly. Beckett is also pondering quietly, which is moderately concerning. Beckett thinking is very dangerous. It invariably results in him, Castle, being discombobulated, one way or another.

She told him she didn't have time or space for a relationship. But whatever's between them blazes like a meteor, and it's already all exploded once. He's only been able to move forward by backing off, but she's rung him – once – and let him in here – several times – and come by his loft – once. And of course she took him to bed. She's said he – ah. She's said, variously, _you deserve better. It's not fair. I'm sorry_. She keeps thinking that all she's doing is taking, and not giving. So she's happy to see him in the precinct, where she can do her job, and he gets to do his research, but she won't ask for anything outside of that limited company because she thinks she's asked for enough. She's _settling_ for the bare minimum, and she thinks she's protecting him. He only just prevents a growl of severe frustration escaping. He is not having that. She could have so much more. He presses gently and encourages her in closer, and continues to ponder.

His deviously fertile brain duly produces an idea.

"I need to do some background research. Back story. Not yours," he says hurriedly. "Nikki's. I need to know about what you do to become a cop. Academy, training, being a beat cop – all that sort of thing. I've got a storyboard all set up at home." He gazes pleadingly at her. "If I made you dinner, would you come over and tell me all about it?"

That's – what? Go to Castle's for dinner? She shouldn't. She really should not encourage this getting closer business. But he wants information, which she can convince herself is fair trade. And she wants to. Really, really wants to go, and sit like this, be held and be peaceful and be able to put her troubles to one side for a little while. It's not as if she's got a packed social life. It's also not as if she doesn't want to. She does want to.

Almost as much as she wants to turn into him, pull his head down and kiss him till he responds and then let the flood bear them where it will.

Just like she didn't call, didn't visit, she doesn't do that either. She still has some self-control. Really. She clutches at its shreds. They're disappearing faster than wet Kleenex in a wind tunnel. It's just so tempting to find oblivion in Castle's likely-to-be-only-too-willing body. She hasn't missed his slight tension, nor the very subtle signs of desire – he's trying not to show it, but he's a couple of inches closer than neutrality would indicate, his eyes are just a little darker than normal, and the little patterns he's drawing on her arm weren't little patterns ten minutes ago. If she gives him even the tiniest bit of encouragement…

Oh, the hell with all this thinking and fretting and morality. It's not like he doesn't want it too. She drags his head round and invades without any more thought or hesitation. The rest of her life can go hang for the rest of this one evening.

Kiss him until he responds? She got that one wrong. There's no _until_ about it. His reactions are light-speed fast. She's not even sure it is a reaction. It might just be a simultaneous action. Whatever it is, though, it just went nova on her. Her last coherent thought is that Castle is a lot faster and a lot stronger than he ought to be, as she's dragged up against him and repositioned so that her mouth is completely accessible and her initial invasion has not just been repelled but reversed.

Frantic, hard, deep kisses beget frantic opening of buttons and shirts and desperation for skin-to-skin contact; pressing into each other and clutching in. It's not a seduction but a supernova; unstoppable and uncontrollable. Hot, hard hands explore and strip and search out arousal, mouths follow hands and excite and tease and devour.

"Bed. _Now_!"

It doesn't matter who said it, or maybe it was both of them together. They fall into bed, clothes discarded untidily behind them, no play, no teasing, no hesitation: she's wide open and he's inside her and they're moving hard and fast and there is no need or time for softness or affection. It's short, rough, and primal. He's been scratched, she's been marked: both of them are left spent and gasping and exhausted, strewn across the bed, clinging to each other.

For some time there is no sound. Even Castle has no words. He's at a loss to explain what is going on. He used to have some control of himself: he never has sex in that primitive, uncontrolled, selfish way; he always makes sure his partner is wholly satisfied. He's learned to be a good, considerate lover: he's not a callow teen. (But he'd lost control the day before prom.) Beckett's always cool, calm and in control of herself. (But before it all went wrong, she'd kissed him with all that was in her.) And yet neither of them seem to have the slightest ability to control themselves as soon as they kiss. He reaches over and gathers Beckett into him, hoping to restore some gentleness, some affection and some sense into affairs and then stays lax and contentedly sprawled across the bed.

Beckett also has no clue what's going on. Unlike Castle, however, right now she doesn't care. The release of all her pent-up stress in the shattering release of her body under Castle's has left her limp and wholly drained, such that when he gathers her in she has not the slightest ability to object or resist. Not that she wants to do either. For now, she's content _not_ to think at all. If she's not thinking, she's not worrying.

Oblivion is the greatest gift anyone could give her, this evening, and that's what she's got. Caught in against Castle, she rapidly slips down into its embrace.

* * *

_Thank you to everyone. I really appreciate hearing your thoughts. All logged in reviews are answered._


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21: Killing me softly**

She's woken by her phone. She is alone, still naked, and tucked into her bed. Tucked up, as if she were a child. She should be annoyed, instead she's comforted. The sheets and pillows are still faintly redolent of Castle's cologne. She is, she realises, unhappy that he isn't there.

"Beckett," she forces out. It's barely light: it can't even be six a.m. Her shift won't even start till nine, today – not that this stops her being in around eight, every day. It's Friday, and she's on the roster.

"Miss Beckett? This is Sergeant Dawes of the 24th precinct." _No. Please, no_. It's not the hospital. Or, worse, the morgue. Cling to that. She knows, though, what the next sentence will be.

"Detective Beckett here, Sergeant Dawes. Homicide, out the Twelfth." His tone changes, cop to cop.

"Detective. We have a James Beckett in here. He asked us to call you."

"Drunk?" asks Beckett wearily. Drunk, open container, just like before, just like always. _Oh, Dad. Why?_

" 'Fraid so, detective. You'll need to come get him, get him out. He's a pretty quiet drunk. We've not processed him yet, and seeing as you're another cop..." He tails off. They both understand. It's very unofficial, but sometimes it happens.

"Thank you," she says, heartfelt. " 'Kay. It'll take me an hour to get there. Be there as fast as I can, Sergeant."

She races through a shower and dressing, slings on her shield and gun – she's got to look like a cop, to deal with other cops. Just as she's quitting her bedroom – no time for coffee – she notices a note on the nightstand. She snatches it and shoves it in her pocket for later.

The desk sergeant assesses her cop status in one smooth, sympathetic glance.

"Detective Beckett. Sergeant Dawes?" The rangy man at the desk nods. "I've come to get my father. Anything you can tell me?"

"Picked him up – brought in around four, dead drunk. Tossed him into Holding till he woke up" – she winces – "when he did he asked for you. So I called you. Didn't know you were a cop. He never said."

"Thanks," she says again, equally grateful. She looks at her watch. "Shit. I gotta call my captain. Should be on shift in an hour." Dawes gives her a look of comradeship. "Sergeant, can you give me a couple of minutes to get this done?"

"Sure. Give me a holler when you're done." She knows he expects her captain to chew her out a bit for this. She'd feel less guilty if Montgomery would do that. She dials.

"Montgomery."

"Sir, Beckett."

"Beckett? Why are you calling this early? It's barely half past seven."

"Sir, I'm at the 24th precinct. They took in my dad last night, dead drunk. I gotta sort him out. They're bringing him up now. They'll give him a pass, though."

On the other end of the phone, Montgomery's heart sinks. Just what Beckett didn't need. And now she'll be back asking for more shifts, if he reads her right. And he'll refuse, again, and she'll look as if he's taken her lifeline away, and he'll have done the right thing, and hate it.

"Okay, Beckett. You do what you gotta do. Keep me informed. We'll cover somehow."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." She swipes the phone off.

"Sergeant? I'm done, thank you. Can we get my dad up?"

Dawes starts on the routine and Beckett dutifully signs for all the right things in all the right places. She knows exactly what to do and where to sign. She's done it all before. When she's done, and Dawes arranges for her father to be released to her, she waits and remembers Castle's note. It's short and somehow bouncy.

_Had to go home for Alexis. You didn't wake. I thought kisses were supposed to wake Sleeping Beauty, but obviously not. See you at the precinct later. Dinner at mine tonight, 7pm. RC_

Oh, _hell_. Another complication that she has to deal with. At least this one is relatively simple. She pulls her phone out and rapidly texts. _Not sure I'll make it. Sorry. Dad. B._ She knows it's brusque, but she hasn't time for more, and her dad needs her.

Her father is brought up a few moments later, looking filthy, guilty, and most of all, still drunk.

She can't do this.

She has to do this. There's no-one else to do it for her. She steers him out the 24th and to her car to take him home to his apartment.

In the apartment she – so very gently, though it costs her – leads him to his bathroom, and suggests he showers. He's a complaisant drunk, today. Other times, he hasn't been so easy to deal with. But today she might just get away with it. She pulls the door to and starts to search the kitchen while she can. Strangely, there's nothing there. There's no smell of alcohol, nor are there empty bottles. She rapidly investigates the main room – the same lack of evidence – and even more hurriedly, the bedroom. Still nothing.

He must have gone out on a bender, but she's no idea what triggered this one. He'd been fine when she left. She hadn't mentioned anything that might set him off – that she knows of. Not her mother, not her job, not the shootout. There hasn't been a new body since then, so there can't have been anything in the news. Unless... unless he was told something… if he had an appointment and he didn't tell her. Oh God.

She'll have to ask him. While he's drunk, and won't remember, and won't resist. How has it come to this: that she's searching (searched) her father's apartment, that she's interrogating him while he's still drunk so he gives her truthful answers and doesn't remember it afterwards, that she's seriously wondering if she should check him into residential rehab? Except that last doesn't work. Never will work, unless he wants it badly enough. At least she can hear the shower running. He's still himself enough to want to be clean.

She's putting his kettle on when there's a crash. She races to the bathroom and slams to a halt in the doorway. Her father is collapsed unconscious over the toilet and there's blood all over the floor. She's dialling 911 even before she's registered anything else. She gives the address and details. She can't panic. She's trained not to panic in an emergency. She can't listen to the voice in her head that's yammering _it's your dad it's your dad it's not a stranger it's your dad_ because as soon as she does she'll fall apart. If she falls apart she'll fail her dad.

The dispatcher is done with her, so Beckett – still telling herself that this is no time to panic, still locking away the knowledge that this is her dad and it's his blood spattering the floor and the room, desperately treating this like just another stranger – gets her dad into the recovery position and then, when he's as comfortable as she can make him, takes a better look around. Then she sits down hard outside the bathroom door with her head between her knees and tries very hard not to hyperventilate and/or faint. She's seen less mess in a slaughterhouse and _this is her dad_ and it's his blood on the floor.

Mercifully soon the bus arrives. Beckett wants to go with them, but she can't: they want room to work. Reluctantly, she accepts that. She'll have to follow, and she's in no state to drive. It'll have to be a cab, and hope that the traffic isn't too bad. It's the wrong time of day for this, though, rush hour not yet over. She spends the painfully slow cab journey composing a call to Montgomery. It takes her most of the ride to dial and say the few words.

"Sir, I'm sorry. I have to take my father back to hospital. Emergency. I'll keep you informed. I've got to go now. They need me in there." Montgomery says all the right things and doesn't get a chance to order her not to come in.

By the time she gets to Presybterian she's a mess. Everything's fallen in on her, now she can't do any more for her father: she has to trust in the doctors. She's desperate for news, but she knows not to distract the staff: she wants to lock herself away and weep, but she knows that she needs to be available if the doctors want her for anything. All she can do is sit, and stand, and pace, and sit again. She doesn't dare go to the shop for a paper, or to the café to get a coffee, until the doctors have spoken to her. She paces some more. Her gun and shield are very obvious, and no-one comes near her. She's radiating _keep-off_. It's entirely likely that if someone tries to talk to her she will snap.

It's another hour before anyone comes to talk to her, by which time she's sure that this is the end. The expression on the doctor's face is not reassuring.

"Miss Beckett?"

"Yes." She's not going to object to any form of address, if only someone will tell her what's going on.

"We have stabilised your father." The world flickers out of focus for a moment, and flickers back again.

"Stabilised?" _He's alive he's still alive._

The doctor explains carefully and slowly what has happened. Beckett listens equally carefully, but it takes her a while to understand. They've stopped the bleeding, but it could happen again at any time. If it happens when he's alone, he will likely bleed out. They're going to keep him in, again. He's unconscious now, does she want to see him? After that she can stay, or go, at her option. There are no specific visiting hours, she can come any time, for as long as she wants. She knows that. She remembers it from a few days ago. He likely won't wake up till the evening. She opts to see him now, and then return later.

_Oh God._ This time he's hooked up to machines and tubes and wires. He looks dead already, the rise and fall of his breathing imperceptibly slight. The monitors beep forlornly. She stays a few moments, uselessly holding her father's hand, finally kissing his forehead and walking away.

She goes straight to the haven of her bullpen, looking for oblivion in the job.

* * *

Castle shows up early – a lot earlier than usual – at the Twelfth, intending to be unobtrusively supportive. He's looking plaintively round the bullpen at Esposito and Ryan, neither of whom seem to have any inclination to relieve his boredom, when it occurs to him to check his phone. He's staring at the text when Montgomery shows up from his meeting.

"Detectives Esposito, Ryan. Castle." Briefly, he looks surprised that Castle's in this early. "A moment." He shuts the door behind them all. "Detective Beckett is indisposed." Castle fails utterly to control his expression. Beckett is _not_ indisposed. Either Montgomery's lying, or Beckett is. And he strongly doubts that she would lie to Montgomery under any circumstances. The job is too important to her to risk that. "She will not be working today. She may not be able to work for a few days. You two will need to cover for her. We'll discuss her caseload later." Esposito is looking from Castle to Montgomery and back again.

"What do you know, Writer-Boy? You know something." Oh shit.

"How is this your business, Detective Esposito?" Montgomery's tones are cold. "You get your information from Detective Beckett or from me. No-one else."

"We're Beckett's team. We've a right to know what's wrong. We got her back."

"If you really got her back, you take her cases and you leave her be. You've a right to know what I want you to know. That's it. You want anything more, you ask Beckett. But if I find you've been hassling her before she gets back, you'll be on report. I run this precinct."

Esposito looks like he's about to explode.

"Castle. If Detective Beckett's not in you have no reason to be here." Castle recognises that not as a dismissal but as an attempt to prevent Esposito taking him apart. "Dismissed, Detectives. Report to me with Beckett's cases in fifteen minutes."

Castle doesn't expect to – and indeed doesn't – escape Ryan and Esposito.

"What's up with Beckett?" Ryan asks.

"How do you know more than Montgomery? You been annoying Beckett?" Esposito is in Castle's face. Castle doesn't back off.

"No. Back off, Espo. You got Beckett's back." He really doesn't want a fight. Espo just wants to protect Beckett. But that's Castle's job, in this situation.

"Yeah. Me. Not you. So you tell me what you know." Castle didn't want a fight. But some people – Esposito – are born fighters, some – Ryan – achieve fighting, and some – he – have fighting thrust upon them.

"No."

"Whaddya mean, _no_? Spill."

"No. I'm going now, like I was told." Esposito blocks him.

"Spill, Castle," he repeats, producing his hardest intimidating glare.

"No. You hear me asking you what Beckett tells you? You don't, do you? You don't spill her secrets." He glares back. "Nor do I. Back off, Espo. I'm not having this fight with you. Beckett wouldn't like it." He manufactures a grin. "And I'm a lot more frightened of her than I am of you."

He steps around Esposito, carefully, and makes for the elevator, not quite hurrying. He's not worried about Esposito. He is desperately worried about Beckett. That's gone from _not sure I'll make it_ to _missing for days_.

Behind him, Ryan looks sympathetically at Esposito. "You know, bro, he's just doin' what you're doin'. Having Beckett's back." Esposito's growl in return would scare grizzlies into hiding.

Castle goes home and waits, and writes. And waits, and plays computer games, and writes. And waits, and drinks too much coffee, and stops pretending to write.

And then there's a knock on the door.

* * *

Beckett goes from the hospital to the precinct. When she walks in, Ryan's jaw drops.

"What'cha doin' here, Beckett? You're not supposed to be here. Thought you were sick." He peers at her. "You don't look so good. You oughta go home and get better."

She flips him the bird and walks on by to Montgomery's office, knocks and enters.

"Sir. Reporting for duty."

"What the hell are you doing here, Beckett?"

"I need to work. I gotta do something."

"We had this discussion last time. You are not going on duty when you're not fit for it. Go home, Beckett. I don't want to see you in here till next Wednesday."

"But…"

"Or I can write you up for insubordination and you'll be out till a week next Wednesday unpaid."

"Yes, sir," she says unhappily. Just as he'd expected, she looks devastated that he won't let her work.

Montgomery looks at her carefully. "Beckett, you're not okay. You can't hide in doing the job when you're not fit for it. What're you gonna do if the hospital rings when you're taking someone down? Or in the middle of interrogation?" He sees her recognise the reality of his words, and the agonised realisation that _this time _it's all different. Last time there could never have been phone calls. The dead don't call, don't write. This time she has to be able to go when she's called.

She should be very grateful that Montgomery is sympathetic and willing to cut her some slack. She should be, but she isn't. She wants to drown herself in work and never come out. But she isn't going to be allowed to, so all she can do is leave.

The only thing Esposito sees of Beckett is her profile through the closing elevator doors.

"Ryan, why'd you not tell me Beckett was here?"

" 'Cause she was here for the whole of the two minutes you were in the restroom, reported to Montgomery, and left."

* * *

She can't work: Montgomery won't allow it. She can't think: her father's collapse has prevented it. She can't do anything till later, when her father will – she hopes – have regained consciousness. She walks blindly along. She can't go home: to stare at the clean, cream, unbloodied walls; she can't bear to go back to her father's apartment and clean up. She's not sure she can clean it – physically or emotionally. She stops in a coffee bar and calls up the name of a good cleaning service. She'll meet them there, tomorrow. They can't come out today. Even that small setback seems insurmountable: another failure. She drinks her coffee and struggles for composure.

There's one place she can go where composure isn't going to matter. She turns southward, walking slowly, her usual swinging stride absent. She doesn't care any more. She just needs comfort: someone to lean on, until she can stand on her own again. Just a little time out, just a small break. It's a beautiful day, if your father isn't dying.

And so she finds herself at Castle's door, raising her hand to knock, too tired and sad and wrecked by the horror of the morning and her inability to use her usual coping mechanism (her only coping mechanism) to care any more that she wasn't going to do this.

She would have had a nice civilised dinner and nothing would have happened. She wouldn't have selfishly taken and not given: she'd have answered all his incessant questions in return for dinner and brought… No. She would not have brought wine. Flowers, maybe, which would have amused him, or chocolates. And nothing could, and nothing would, have happened. And now here she is at lunchtime because she can't hold on any longer.

When he opens the door Castle runs one swift, all-encompassing glance over Beckett, reaches out to haul her inside and wraps her into his arms without hesitation, pushing the door shut with his foot.

"There, there," he soothes pointlessly. "Come and sit down." He doesn't wait for answers, but settles them both on the couch. "I've got you. I'm right here." He strokes her hair softly and holds her close. It takes a moment for him to realise that she's choking out _I need you_.

"I'm right here," he says again, still petting her. She's not holding herself away from him: she's leaning on him and whatever it is that she needs, once more she's come to him to find it. What she mostly seems to need is to be tucked into his large frame. This is not a problem. She can be tucked into him for a very long time before it becomes any sort of a problem, and the most likely problem is that he'll eventually want her tucked into him in his bed. Possibly not in the middle of the day, though.

She's _clinging_ to him. This is definitely not normal and not good. Beckett does not cling. (Katie didn't cling, either. Anything but.) She's also still trying to speak, muffled by misery and the words thronged by tears. He doesn't tip her head up from his chest to check. He doesn't need to. If she is crying (and she should let all that misery out, but he doesn't think that she will) then she doesn't want it known, and anyway he'll discover it soon enough without forcing the pace.

"I'm sorry," she mumbles. "I shouldn't…" the rest is lost in his shirt. He pats her back and drops a light kiss on the top of her head.

"Sure you should, sweetheart." He stops hard on that. The last time he'd said that she'd frozen and apologised and stopped and stepped right back into her walled-off world. (He'd used endearments, and she'd hated them – except for sweetheart, which she'd accepted, in time.)

"Shouldn't. I should be dealing with things. I should be working. I shouldn't need this." She burrows into him further, almost inaudible. "But I just needed you."

* * *

_To friends old and friends new and those who have discovered this recently, thank you all. I really appreciate hearing your thoughts in as much detail as you care to share. _


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22: I can't face the truth**

"There was so much blood." She shudders. "I've seen gruesome murders but there was so much blood and it was my dad and I had to deal with it."

Castle thinks that now she's here shock and reaction are taking over in full. If asked, he'd have bet that she's held her barriers right up until he opened the door. (He wouldn't have been wrong.) Her skin is clammy and she's shivering. He wraps her in tighter.

"Tell me about it," he murmurs. "Talk to me."

"He was taken in and kept till he was sober enough to ask them to call me. I went to get him out – oh God, the insurance, I didn't leave the details. I don't know if they need them." She's instantly tense, patting her pockets and searching frantically. "Where are they? I'll have to sort it." There's a very unwelcome note of hysteria rising behind her voice (for Beckett, anyway: for anyone else it would be a minor note of fuss).

"Did you put them in your purse?" She's off the couch in seconds, rifling her bag, searching her wallet. She holds it up. "Got it." She slumps again, and Castle pulls her back down and in, looking over her shoulder.

"That's okay. They'll call you if they need something," he says. "Do you need to do anything about it if they don't?"

Beckett shakes her head and relaxes infinitesimally, leaning back into him. He doesn't mention her action, but he's delighted by it. Well. He would be delighted, if it weren't for the cause. He'll take Beckett back any way he can get her, but over a coffin wasn't exactly how he'd imagined them meeting again. Neither had meeting over a corpse been on his radar, but that wasn't personal. This is only too personal. (And yet he'd never met either of her parents. Looks like now he never will.)

"Better?" he asks. She turns into him and burrows back into his chest. Obviously not. "Wanna talk about it?" There's a soggy silence below his head. He clamps his tongue firmly between his teeth and doesn't say anything more. Pushing simply will not help. He returns to stroking slowly over her hair and back. It's intended to be peaceable and comforting. For a time, it works. Beckett nestles in ever closer, limp and bedraggled and still shivering. Castle doesn't think she's capable of talking, in the unlikely event that she wants to.

When she does start, forcing words out past her palate like grinding beef through a mincer, he rather wishes she hadn't wanted to. He thought he could deal with gore. He's a crime writer, for heaven's sake: he's seen a lot of it. Even watched an execution, once – that had been truly horrible, mainly because of the cold, clinical nature of the act. It's not messy. This, though, is something quite different. She'd _seen_ that? _Seen_ her father's blood covering the room? He becomes aware that she's still mumbling.

"I can't even get it cleaned till tomorrow. I just couldn't do it myself and the service weren't able to come today. I can't bear to do it." Castle's arms are tight around her as she pushes further into the muscle of his chest. It's so very warm in his grasp, and she's so very cold, right to her core.

"The service will deal with it," he murmurs soothingly. "You just stay here for a while. I've got you." Which means nothing, of course, except that she needs him to comfort her and that's all that statement is designed to do. He hasn't _got_ her at all, really. Or… maybe he has, a little, because she came here. (She never used to come to him when something hurt. She just… disappeared, and then reappeared without a word.)

"I have to go back to the hospital. He won't wake up till later. There's no point being there till then but Montgomery won't let me work and I can't go back till Wednesday." She stops. Castle thinks he hears a sniff. "I can't _do_ anything. I can't help my dad and I can't do my job and all I can do is sit and wait." There's another hard stop.

"What's going to happen the next time? What's going to happen when it happens again and I'm not there? I nearly wasn't there. I was going to go home but he needed a shower and I…" her voice is laced with acid and agony… "I wanted to interrogate him." It's the dead tone of self-loathing that really rips through him. "I needed to know what set him off. He was fine at dinner time. I thought he was fine…" Her tone dies away into nothing. "And then he went out and got wasted and picked up." He hears locking down in every harsh, hard syllable. "And then there was blood everywhere and the ambulance and now he's in a hospital bed and he looks like he's already dead."

"Oh, Katie." He doesn't even think when he uses the name. "Sweetheart, come here."

"Don't call me Katie." But it's not a sharp order and it's not a movement away, it's just tired and sad and defeated. "My dad calls me Katie. No-one else." And then she dissolves into a pool of exhausted misery. "No-one's going to be calling me that now."

Castle doesn't think that pointing out that he could – if she wanted – call her anything she liked is really going to help. She could call him anything she liked, too. She'd used to call him Rick. (Never Ricky.) She hasn't called him Rick – except once, right at the beginning, with extreme sarcasm – since they met again. He realises he likes being called Castle, by Beckett. Especially in – _not a helpful thought, Rick_. Especially not in these circumstances. He pets her, uselessly. He can already feel her control reasserting itself.

"Do you want some lunch?" he asks softly. "Or coffee? Or something else?" She shakes her head.

"Not hungry." Possibly she isn't, but she ought to eat. Still, it's not up to him.

"Coffee? While I have lunch?"

"Okay." It sounds almost placating, as if she feels she has to accept something. "Please." Castle rearranges himself to stand up and make coffee, while leaving Beckett curled into the couch in a posture connoting extreme unhappiness.

By the time coffee, and a sandwich, is made, Beckett has re-established some small semblance of composure. She has to pull herself together. She'll need to make some hard choices, over the next day or few, and drowning in her own misery isn't going to get her any further with any of it. She stares into the hot liquid, draws in the scent, and hopes that it will make everything clearer.

Castle has put his arm back around her, and it's stupidly comforting. She curls in. She might as well have something good, because all her thoughts are otherwise bad.

One. She has to move her father either into her apartment or residential care. No argument, no other options.

Two. She'll need to take extended leave. She can't leave him alone. (Unsupervised, she thinks.) At the very minimum, she'll need to find a care service.

So maybe there is another option than moving him in. Care, in his own apartment.

Three. She'll need to find out about his finances. How much is left on his insurance. Then if that's not enough… He's not old enough for Medicare. He'll need to sell out his investments – if he still has any, and then to sell his apartment. And then he'll be living with her anyway.

So maybe it would be easier just to move him in right now and get a care service and then she can go to work and look after him at night. She can afford it, for a while after his funds run out. Then… well, she could sell up and buy outside Manhattan. That would release a lot of money.

She stares unflinchingly down the narrowing tunnel of her limited choices. They all seem to be one choice, in the end. Move him in, whether he likes it or not. She'll start searching for a care service as soon as she's finished her coffee and got home. She has to do everything possible to save her father. She can't let him down.

He's all she has.

Castle watches the expressions play out across Beckett's face and matches them fairly accurately to the returning tension in her shoulders. He's not at all surprised by the determined way she drains her coffee and sets the mug down sharply.

Beckett, on the other hand, is rather surprised when she rises to leave and Castle snags his jacket too.

"You going out too, Castle?"

"Yeah," he replies amiably.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have kept you."

"No hurry. I had plenty time." He locks up, and follows Beckett to the elevator.

It's not till they're part way up Varick that Beckett consciously realises that Castle is still there. She'd expected him to peel off by now, to whatever pursuits have taken him out, remove his arm from round her.

"What did you have to go out for?" Castle doesn't answer for a second. The hesitation puts Beckett on alert. "Castle, why are you walking up the street with me?"

"I was going this way," he says evasively. His arm snuggles more closely around her.

"_Why_ were you going this way, Castle? What are you doing?" He shifts a little furtively.

"Er… keeping you company?" He sounds, even to himself, ridiculously guilty that she's caught him out. But…

"You could just have asked me, you know." _What_? Asked her?

"You'd… you'd have _agreed_?" He's astonished. Astounded. Flabbergasted.

She doesn't answer. Castle assumes that means _yes_, but that she won't admit it. The next few yards progress in fairly companionable silence.

"If you don't mind sitting and watching me look up care services…" Sorry? Care services? He supposes that that might be a good plan.

"No. As long as you lend me paper and a pen, I can amuse myself for hours. Benefit of being a writer. You can do it anywhere."

"Writers do it anywhere? Maybe that explains the police horse?" It's almost the normal snark, for almost a minute, before she sinks back into thought and gloom. They walk a little further.

"Care services?"

"To look after Dad." His failure to understand becomes obvious. "If it happens again, he'll bleed out and die." Ah. She'd not quite mentioned that, earlier. "So I can't leave him alone. So either I quit the job, or take extended leave, or I get someone. If someone's there all day, I can make it work."

She doesn't sound wholly convinced about that. Castle is entirely unconvinced. This sounds to him like a grown-up version of the working parent dilemma: always feeling guilty that you're not doing the _other_ job from the one you're trying to do right now. He wonders what on earth will happen the first time she realises that she has to clock off an interrogation, or chasing a lead, to get to her father's home. He really cannot see this going well. He _can_ see, with pinpoint precise clarity, Beckett killing herself to try to make it work, because she can't face letting her father down.

"I get it." He really wishes he didn't get it. But he can be there for her, to take the edge off and the pain away. "What about nights?"

"He'll have to live with me." It's flat and unarguable: this is what will happen. He's heard her use that tone to low lives and suspects, but now she's about to use it on herself and her father. When is she going to sleep? He remembers the lack of sleep when Alexis was small, the panicked waking just in case something was wrong, the obsessive checking that she was okay. He somehow cannot imagine that Beckett wouldn't do the same. He gives it a week – no, this is Beckett, a month – before she's too tired to function.

"I thought you said he refused?" he probes delicately. "Will he agree?"

"He has to. He can't be left alone." _To die_ hangs heavily silent in the noisy New York air. _Oh, Beckett. You're going to crash. You can't save him, because he doesn't want saved. But you're going to die trying, and when it fails you're going to die of guilt and grief. I just hope that's metaphorical._ From everything Castle's seen and deduced, Beckett doesn't tolerate failure. (Katie never had.)

Beckett's apartment is as clean and neat and sterile as the last time. She collects a small laptop, a pen and a lined pad of paper and puts them, and herself, at her desk. She provides Castle with some more paper and another pen, and settles down to her research. It's punctuated by scribbles and sighs. After about an hour, she looks at her scrawls – a mixture of words and numbers, some multiplication and addition. Castle wanders over and looks down at the page with some bleak admiration. (Katie had been as good at math as everything else.)

"Want a drink, Castle?"

"Let me make it. You carry on, and I'll supply you with coffee for inspiration." With something to do, and a goal in mind, however insane, Beckett has recovered at least a coating of her normal self.

"I wouldn't call you a muse, Castle," she grins. "They were all beautiful women."

"That's incredibly sexist," he grumps, playing along. "At least one of them should be male." Beckett raises a delicate eyebrow.

"Why? Or more importantly, which?" She looks entirely sceptical at the thought.

"Well…" he thinks for a moment… "It could be Calliope, or maybe Melpomene" – Beckett recognises both as epic and tragic writing respectively, and accords Castle a brief and exceedingly rare look of respect for his knowledge – "but" – he leers, and she realises where he's going approximately a millisecond before he says it – "I think actually Erato." She growls and rolls her eyes simultaneously. "What? I'm ruggedly handsome, famously popular with women, and excellent in bed."

Beckett's planned riposte about conceit is abruptly swamped by a tide of raw physical reaction super-charged by memory. He is extremely good in bed. She rams it back down again, emitting only a tiny, inadvertent noise.

It hits Castle's hindbrain rather before any filters kick in. He spins round and recognises the look in her eye as that same uncontrolled lust that he expects is in his. And then he stops. This is not the time or the place, and Beckett is clearly exerting the same immense control that he is to prevent that explosive reaction. If she can, he can. He turns back towards the kitchenette and the kettle. He needs a moment. So, from her expression, does Beckett.

Beckett stares unseeingly at her pad and tries to push away the sudden desire. It works. Contemplating the ruination of her life has a very cooling effect. Looking at the sums that care is going to cost is chilling. That's pretty much all of her salary, even on the best case. Okay, so she doesn't exactly need her salary thanks to the insurance pay-out and some good investment advice, (she doesn't actually need it at all) but it's not pleasant to have no buffer. She writes down _Talk to Dad's insurance company and financial adviser._ She has permission to deal with all his financial affairs, though she hasn't used it in some time.

Coffee arrives in front of her and an arm behind her. Both are much appreciated. Neither provides anything more than moral support, though she can use a lot of that, too. Practical solutions are very hard to see.

"This is a mess," she says, hopelessly. "I'll need to interview the care services. I need to sort out Dad's apartment, but I can't do that till it's cleaned. I'll need to find a realtor, and put his stuff in storage. I haven't room for all of it. He'll need to decide what to keep." She takes a scratched breath. "Or I will, if he can't. I need to talk to the insurers, and the financial adviser. I'll need to tell Dad what I'm doing, tonight, and hope that he agrees." She breaks off for a second. "He has to agree. There isn't another way. He'll never agree to go to residential care." She stops again.

"Or he might die before I need to do any of this." And then the floodgates open. It's all too real, and all the actions she has to take are all too much. She turns into Castle and weeps hopelessly. She's been doing far too much of that ever since he showed up again, but she can't seem to stop. Or if she does, it turns into spectacular, spectacularly stupid, scorching sex. She's a mess, and she hates how much she's depending on Castle simply to provide solid strength on which she can lean, but she just can't sort herself out.

Her phone rings.

"Beckett."

"Miss Beckett. Your father is conscious."

"Thank you. I'll come right away." She turns to Castle. "Dad's awake." There's a short, uncomfortable silence. It's obvious that she hasn't finished. It's not nearly as obvious what she's going to say next. "Will you come with me?" she blurts out. "Please? I know I don't have any right to ask you but... Please, Castle?"

How could there be any doubt?

"Sure. Where are we going?"

"Presbyterian-Columbia. Quickest on the subway."

He thinks that while it might indeed be fastest to take the subway, that choice has rather more to do with safety. Beckett is in no state to drive, but he's relieved that she's seen it herself. Taking her car keys from her, while he thinks that he's sufficiently bigger than she that he could do it, would be messy and physical, and physical could rapidly go wrong. Wrong, in this case, meaning turning into angry, rage and guilt fuelled sex. That would be a very undesirable outcome.

* * *

Castle succeeds in keeping physical contact with Beckett all the way to, on, and from the subway; into and then through the hospital. She not only doesn't object, but as they come closer first to the hospital and then to her father's room, seems to shrink, and more, shrink against him. All he can do is hold her closer and let her decide how best to take what she needs from him.

Shrinking or not, her step doesn't falter and her pace doesn't slow as they approach. A few yards from the door of the room, she halts and suddenly stands straight, locks down any hint of uncertainty or misery, pastes on a confident face, and removes herself from Castle's grip to lead them towards her father. It's impressive, and terrifying.

He's not sure what to expect. He didn't expect pleasant, or invisible ailments. However, he is entirely unprepared for the wreckage that is lying in the clean, white bed. He's seen winos and panhandlers, but – strange for one who observes and researches obsessively before and during writing – he's never really _looked_. Dropped some money on them, maybe, but never looked.

It's horrible. He has a brief, errant thought that his mother should see this. This used-to-be a man; this yellowed thing, shrunken and swollen in ghastly bodily malformation; bloodshot eyes and unshaven; grizzled, grimy, lined and old. Compared to his fierce, bright, blazing daughter, he's barely alive. _Oh Beckett, Beckett._

Beckett is greeting her father, sitting down by his bed, taking his hand, asking how he feels, if he needs anything: the bright social conversation of the well to the terminally ill. This occupies some moments, as her father falters out words: long spaces between the words as he appears to struggle to assemble – and that so very, very slowly – his thoughts. It's excruciating to watch, even from his unobtrusive place leaning on the door frame. Beckett is moving on to the topic she clearly considers to be vital: the reasons for her father's bender last night.

* * *

_Thank you to everyone who reads and/or reviews. I really appreciate it._


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23: Live and let die**

"Why did you go out?" _And get drunk_ is not spoken, very loudly.

"Got to thinking about that news clip. I hadn't realised who it was, first off… Your mother loved his books. And then I remembered her and I needed to forget."

Castle is marble white behind Beckett. He's almost incapable of processing that. First the news clip, and then the books? Intellectually, he knows that Beckett's father's drinking is not his fault. Down in his punched-out gut, he's not nearly so sure. He's a trigger. Oh fuck. He stands stock still, frozen.

Her father peers, bloodshot and bleary, around her. "How's he here?" He looks terrified, as if he's seen a ghost. "Katie, is he really here?" Oh _shit_, her dad thinks he's hallucinating.

"Don't worry, Dad. He's real. Castle's shadowing me for research." She doesn't explain further. Unlike Castle, she's seen the implications immediately. She can't have Castle around her father. Let her father think she's come from the job. Worry about the problems, for working – or otherwise – with Castle, that moving her father in will cause later. "We came straight here." It's not a lie, but the misinformation and misdirection will do for now. She senses Castle moving away, out of the door and out of her father's sight, and thanks her stars for his intelligence.

Castle clears out of sight completely, finds a nearby chair and waits. Scuffling in his pockets, he finds a pen, and he then applies some focused charm to the nurses and acquires a small sheaf of paper. Writers, after all, can do it anywhere. He applies some considerable self-discipline and tries to write. It's fair to say that he is not very successful. His back story for Nikki had certainly _not_ included a parent – or indeed any character – dying of alcohol abuse.

He sits, and frets, and tries to write, and waits some more. A while later, a nurse goes in, and Beckett emerges. As soon as she's out of sight of the door, all the life in her face and stance drains away and her posture slumps. She takes no more than two steps nearer to Castle before he's risen, taken one long stride and caught her in close.

_There, there_ is becoming rather repetitive, but for as long as it's working Castle is perfectly content to say it over and over again, especially if it allows him to hold on to Beckett and let her see and feel his strength, all of which is available to her. Amazingly, it's being drawn upon.

Until she steps away. Deep in his subconscious, her father's words squirm into him.

"Thanks, Castle." She looks up, out of dry eyes and steel-girdled self-control. "You don't have to stay. I have to wait and talk to the doctors, and I think I'll be here for a while." He's a little hurt, to say the least. She's asked him to come, and now she's asking him to go. "It's not going to be pleasant for you, and you probably won't want to – probably you shouldn't – listen." She pauses, collects her thoughts, winces. "Dad probably doesn't want _me_ to know all this, but he doesn't get a choice about that. You…"

"I get it," Castle says heavily.

"I trust you, but Dad doesn't know you, and likely the doctors won't talk to me if you're there. Patient confidentiality." She steps back into him, leans on his shoulder for only an instant. "I'd much rather you were there."

Oh. _Oh_. Beckett wants him there, but can't have him there, because his being there will interfere with learning what she absolutely needs to know. Okay. That puts a whole different complexion on her request. Not even a hint of pushing him away, not simply taking and then forgetting him; but a massive practical problem if he's still there. But she wants him there. She just can't have him.

"I get it," he says more definitively, and smiles down. "But – would you call, or text, tomorrow? Just so I know you're okay?" He looks hopefully at her.

"I'll try. If I don't…" she trails off. Castle interprets that to mean _if I don't it's because Dad is worse_.

"If you can. If you can't, I'll understand." He shakes his head. "That didn't come out right. I mean – I know there might be other things so only if you want to and have time." He tries to lighten the mood. "Any time. I'll even sacrifice my beauty sleep for you." Finally, there is a very tiny quirk of expression that isn't unadulterated misery.

"Okay." Astonishingly, she hugs him, briefly, holds on for an instant. "Go home, Castle. I'll be fine."

When Castle leaves, Beckett feels unexpectedly and unwontedly bereft. The corridor seems empty, despite the bustle of a busy hospital. The nurse emerges, and Beckett re-enters, to sit with her father until the specialist arrives.

* * *

Castle's phone remains obstinately silent till late into the evening, when it beeps to signal a text. He lunges for it. It's short and to the point: _Still Presbyterian. B._ That doesn't sound good. She's been there for hours. He sends back _I'm here if you need me_. There's no answer, though he doesn't expect one in any short interval. He should, it dawns on him, be happy that Beckett contacted him at all.

In fact, and despite the appalling circumstances, he should be unconditionally delighted with Beckett's current behaviour. She has, basically, arrived on his doorstep, twice, when she was hurt and vulnerable. It's only in these last few days that she's let him see that there is a vulnerable Katie. No. A Kate. As opposed to a hard-assed Beckett. In a rather ass-backward fashion, it's an enormous statement and concession. _Katie_ had never, ever, showed or admitted or hinted at the slightest weakness in front of him. She'd – oh. _Katie _had never trusted him enough (never trusted him at all?) to show any weakness to him. (She'd torn him apart without a tear and shut the door in his face. No weakness, though.) Beckett – or Kate, perhaps? – trusts him enough to show that she needs him – and she _said so_. She said it in the hospital, in plain words. _I trust you_. A blush rose of warmth unfurls in his chest.

He'd wanted to re-establish a relationship like the one they'd had – he'd thought they'd had – in high school. With a few significant differences now that they're – she is – all grown up. Albeit over a tragedy, he has – they have –got to a far deeper place than he'd ever expected to find. And _that_ puts an awful lot into its proper place. Beckett in his arms and _trusting _him definitely puts the world into its proper place. And thinking that, he manages to mask the insecurity that it's all a fake, that she'll hear her father's words and believe that he's to blame.

It's well past midnight when Castle's phone beeps again. _It's all over_. Oh, shit. He can only interpret that one way. He stops himself dialling, and texts instead. _Still up. Here if you need anything._ There is no reply. He doesn't expect one. But it doesn't help.

* * *

Beckett doesn't get to see the specialist till close to seven p.m. There is a brief discussion, after which she takes a short, private, break during which she weeps with no sound at all. After that, she repairs her make-up and returns to sit with her father, for however long they might have. Shortly before midnight, she takes a brief restroom break. When she reappears, the room is full of light and noise and people.

Fifteen minutes later, it's all over.

He'd had another massive internal bleed, but this time it was too much for his abused, over-stressed body. He looks so small… Someone leads her away, to a small quiet room and leaves her alone to her grief. Eventually she thanks the medical staff, sends a brief text to Castle, and goes home. Not to sleep, but to remember her father as he once was: the happy, family man. The man he used to be, before her mother died, before he started to drown his sorrows.

She's literally an orphan now, but in truth she might as well have been orphaned ten years ago.

As the bright dawn breaks over the Manhattan skyline, Beckett has cried herself dry; alone and unsleeping. She can't sleep, she can't mourn for longer, she has to start dealing with the bureaucracy of death. She reads Castle's text, and can't bring herself to reply to it yet. Maybe later. Maybe once she's met the cleaning service, sorted out those formalities which she can sort out on a weekend. The rest will need to wait till Monday. She'll need to make a list, but the one she'd had for moving him into her apartment will do for a start.

An hour or so later she has a list. Top of it is _Call Montgomery_. What he decrees will determine everything else. She takes a very deep breath, starts to dial – and just in time realises that calling her boss at six-thirty a.m. on Saturday is unlikely to get _any_ conversation off to a good start, let alone this one. She sits back, puts her phone down, and simply – stops. As she occasionally does with her murder board, for a time she wipes her mind blank and unfocuses her gaze.

But the memories come, blanked mind or not, from long ago and far away. A small Katie-bug, hand-in-hand between her parents, being one-two-three-whee swung along their walks. A little older, up at the cabin, her dad teaching her to fish; celebrating her very first catch, then teaching her to clean and gut it. Fish has never tasted as good again as that one had. Older still, teenage rows about going to college so far away, and her motorbike; but always, no matter what, she was wholly and unconditionally loved.

Alone, she grieves, remembering again the father she used to have.

And then, in an act of self-defence, she shuts the memories and grief away. She has to get a grip, she has to deal with everything. She can grieve later. She forgets that she has never really grieved for her mother, counselling notwithstanding. She took the other path, and subsumed herself and the grief she should have shown in searching for the killer that she's never found. It's somehow almost got to eight a.m., and in an hour she has to meet the cleaning service. After that it'll be a civilised time to ring Montgomery. She'll grab coffee on the way, she decides, and leaves hard upon the thought. The hot coffee doesn't warm her, or fill the void where her parents used to be.

The cleaning service staff do a reasonable job of hiding their horror at the mess. Beckett requests them to do a full deep clean, (might as well be ready for the realtor, she thinks rationally, and tries to ignore the prick of tears behind her eyes, which is not rational or helpful at all. She has to do this, so no point crying again now.) winces slightly at the price, and leaves them to it.

She walks slowly to yet another coffee bar, gets more caffeine – she's drunk far too much but she doesn't care – and a pastry, takes a brief, deep breath and calls her boss. Montgomery is predictably shocked and sympathetic.

"You'll need to use the days I told you to take off to sort things out. Call me Tuesday and I'll review the position then."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." She swipes off.

Now what?

Plenty, that's what. Starting with organising the funeral. Better to do that first, so that everything else can be planned. No point putting it off. The irrational tears prick again, and she stops thinking for a few moments. She blows her nose, dabs her eyes, and sets her jaw. She has to deal. Tears can come later. She dials the funeral home, and schedules a visit for that afternoon to discuss the arrangements.

That done, she contemplates her phone. Specifically, she contemplates Castle's two texts, neither of which she has answered yet. They don't demand anything of her. She considers for another moment. She can sit at home and mope, and weep, and not sleep, or she can take Castle up on his offers of help. He wants to help. She decides. _Day's pretty busy. That offer of dinner still open? B._ She expects he'll see through the false cheer, but she needs to pretend, to assuage her pride and her shame that all she does is lean on him for support.

A reply arrives almost instantly. _Yes. See you 7._

_See you later,_ she sends. She trudges home, and, in another way of not thinking about anything, resolves to take flowers, just as she had thought about yesterday. Absolutely not wine. When she's home, she wastes some little time in putting off the rest of the things she has to do in thinking about appropriate flowers for Castle. Pink and white carnations, she thinks, for gratitude and remembrance.

* * *

Castle begins to plot dinner almost immediately. While he can think of all kinds of food for a romantic meal, this isn't going to be that. Even if there weren't the unhappy circumstances, Alexis will be there. Anyway, he's seen straight through that text. Subtext is that Beckett is miserable and doesn't want to be alone, which is perfectly understandable. However, she hasn't been eating properly for weeks, so a delectable dinner with absolutely no subtext is a good plan. He thinks happily for a while. He likes cooking and he likes it when others like his cooking. If good cuisine will help Beckett today, that's good too.

He investigates his fridge. Plenty of ingredients. Ah – yes, need to check that. Plenty of soft drinks. Wine, too. But… He'll ask. Any assumption he makes could be wrong, and upsetting. He bounces round his kitchen, planning and preparing.

* * *

Beckett throws herself into the bureaucracy of dealing with her father's affairs, which passes the remainder of the day, but requires a box of Kleenex beside her. She goes out later on to the funeral home, and on the way back purchases a bunch of long-stemmed pink and white carnations. She's only too glad to take a break from thinking about death. In the shop, though, she very carefully avoids looking at the lilies, or the wreaths.

Precisely at seven, she knocks quietly on Castle's door.

Castle jumps up at the knock and hastens to open up. He is slightly confused to be greeted by a mobile bouquet of carnations, until he realises that Beckett is concealing her face behind them, deliberately. The pattern of her breathing and the hitch around her soft _Hey_ tell him that she's holding her control with an iron grip.

"Flowers, Beckett? Thank you." He takes them from her and hunts for a vase.

"Why not? I thought it was appropriate. I can't compete on the wine front, and if I bring chocolates I won't get to eat them all." She smiles, though it's a rather faded copy of the grin that would normally accompany her words. Her eyes are bleak, and he understands that she is making a huge effort to appear normal. He plays along with her game. Later, he hopes, Alexis will be out of the way; his mother, if she even appears, can be despatched again; and coffee can be taken in the quiet privacy of his study, where comfort and consolation can be provided in any form Beckett chooses to accept.

Dinner turns out to be an excellent chicken tagine with rice and a green salad, followed by a truly delectable chocolate tart with whipped cream. (Castle admits to buying the tart). Beckett, somewhat surprisingly, is persuaded to half a glass from a bottle of spicy Alsace white, and answers Castle's easy flow of procedural questions and occasional enthusiastically naive interjections by Alexis. She censors the tales of the Academy in deference to his daughter's presence, though she is perfectly sure that Castle has spotted the pauses and slight omissions or evasions and will query them later, when Alexis can't hear.

"Are you done, Beckett?" She's pushing the crumbs of the dessert around her plate, momentarily zoned out.

"Oh – yes. Sorry." She musters a smile. "That was delicious. Thank you." It's easily the best meal she's had in weeks. It's the first proper meal she's had in three days.

Castle and Alexis have cleared the table almost before she's got halfway through _Can I help?_, but it seems like everything goes in a dishwasher. When they're done, Castle gently shoos Alexis off to bed, promising to come up to say goodnight shortly, and returns to the table where Beckett is still sitting.

"Coffee?"

"Please." She doesn't move for a moment, then forces herself to make the effort to stand. She's exhausted from the day. Castle redirects her trajectory from the main room to the study and the same large armchair she'd occupied a week or so ago, disappears to bid goodnight to Alexis, and on the way back produces two cups of excellent coffee.

"More comfortable in here, Beckett," he says, perching on the desk. "You can tell me all the unbowdlerised tales about the Academy and being a rookie cop."

"Unbowdlerised?" She raises one eyebrow.

"Uncensored," he says, slightly patronisingly.

"I know what it _means_, Castle" –

"That's so hot." She glares. It's almost normal, for a short time. He's still playing along with her pretence of normality.

"But what makes you think there's anything like that? It's not _Police Academy_ – any of them – you know." Castle looks deeply disappointed.

"Really?" he whines. "No-one who can make weird noises?"

"No."

"No-one who's a gun nut and adrenaline junkie?"

"No." That's not wholly true, but they tend to calm down. There's certainly no-one like Eugene Tackleberry, fortunately.

"No sexy female cops?"

"Nope."

"Liar."

"What?"

"Liar." Her eyebrow rises again. "You were there." She actually blushes. It's adorably cute. Cute things should be cuddled. So he does, setting down his cup and hers, and hoisting her up so he can slide underneath her and arrange her in his lap. Arrange her where she belongs, in fact. It soothes his underlying fear of her thoughts about his role in this whole tragic episode.

Being cuddled is immensely comforting. Beckett is properly warm for the first time since yesterday; since she was last in Castle's arms, in fact. But she is not going to weep all over him yet again. It's not fair. He isn't there to prop her up. She has to cope, until it's all over and done, and then she can allow herself to mourn, alone, and then she can start her life over again. That doesn't mean that she can't stay snuggled in, though. Castle's wide, warm torso is very soothing; the soft cotton of his shirt kind on her much scrubbed face. She leans against him, and finds a modicum of ease.

"Are you doing okay, Beckett?"

"I'm fine." She stops, hearing his noise of disbelief. "I will be fine. I just need to get through." Castle's eyes are soft with sympathy.

"Anything you need," he says, and leaves it at that.

Beckett's exhaustion is not cured by the coffee. The warmth and comfort that Castle's presence is providing is, in fact, rapidly sending her towards sleep. She puts her cup down and nestles closer. Castle responds by stroking gently over her back in hypnotic little circles, and encourages her to lean her head on his shoulder some more. In that position, the gentle stroking extends to her arm and hair. Beckett likes that, as much as she would like anything today. She turns slightly into the curve of his hand, so that he's now stroking her cheek too. Entirely unconsciously, she hums; the first real sign since yesterday that she's let go of some of her stress.

Since gentle stroking is working, Castle carries on. Beckett's dark lashes have fallen on to her pale cheeks, and it's clear that bereavement, stress and lack of sleep have caught up with her. It's a perfect opportunity to enjoy watching her closely without the risk of unfortunate consequences. He knows he ought to suggest that she goes home; it's becoming increasingly likely that he will have to wake her up so that she can go home; but he very much likes having Beckett tucked into his arms. _So_ much better than any other variant on cute-and-cuddlable.

This happy state of affairs lasts until Castle's conscience finally gets the upper hand.

* * *

_Those of you who remember the A/N in ch1 may have been expecting this... also those of you who have encountered this disease._

_Thank you for reading and reviewing. I appreciate all your comments and continue to answer all logged in reviews._


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24: Hold me**

"Wake up, Beckett," he murmurs, after a considerable time. It has no effect at all. "Wake up," he says, a bit louder. There's an unintelligible mutter and a brief lift of eyelids, which promptly close again. He shakes her shoulder. An eye opens and glares, she mutters marginally more intelligibly _no alarm go away_, and closes the eye again. Conversation over, it seems. He tries again, rather more forcefully.

"Beckett, you need to wake up."

"Don't."

"Beckett, if you don't wake up I'll need to drop cold water over you."

"Go away. 'm asleep."

"You're not asleep. You're talking to me." That produces a groan.

"Don't wanna wake up." She snuggles back into his chest and slings an arm round his neck. Clearly consciousness has not yet happened. This is all very nice, but it's not helpful. Beckett treating him like an oversize teddy bear is really not assisting his conscience-driven suggestion that it's time she is at least given the option to go home, especially when Beckett going home is the last thing he wants. Beckett going six yards sideways into his bedroom, on the other hand… that thought is also _not helpful_. He has an idea.

"Beckett, we got a body." She ignites.

"Body? Where? Call the boys. Is Lanie there yet?" She's instantly fully awake.

"No body." He smiles ruefully. "I just needed you to wake up properly."

"Not funny, Castle." She looks down at her watch. "Oh." Her face closes down. "I'm sorry. That's why you wanted me to wake up." And then she clearly remembers the rest. Her expression momentarily crumples, until she reasserts control.

"No. I wanted you to wake up so you could decide what you wanted to do." There's a miserable mutter of _wake up and find it was all a dream_. "You can stay as long as you want." She looks so unhappy, he can't bear it. "You can stay right here." He tips her chin up and looks into suspiciously glistening eyes. "I said you could fall asleep on my shoulder any time."

"I…" She doesn't know what she wants to say. She does know that she doesn't want to leave the warmth and life around her for the cold sterility and memory of death in her solitary apartment. She doesn't want to be alone. Not tonight. (Her mother had died alone. Her father – not in body. In spirit – not so much.) She drops her eyes and head, and stares at her hands lying motionless in her lap.

She might yet have taken the sensible option, if she hadn't brought her face and gaze up at precisely the moment Castle had leaned down to drop a kiss on her forehead. Instead, it landed on her lips, and suddenly her path became clear.

Life.

She needs to affirm that _she_ is alive, she needs to forget. Castle wants her, so she's giving as well as taking. It might be a damn poor bargain, but she's not yet dead. The tide of desire crashing down her veins when his lips meet hers is proof of that. In the midst of death, the insanity of this blazing mutual heat will give her life.

She kisses him before he can pull back. She's had surfeit of death: she needs to find life before she has to deal with death again.

"Kiss me, Castle," she breathes. "Kiss me and make me forget. Just for now."

Castle pauses. "No." He kisses her fiercely as she starts to protest his denial. "I'll make you forget, Beckett. But when you remember, I'll still be here with you. And if you need to forget again, I'll still be there. With you." His mouth descends on hers and takes complete, unarguable, possession. She's instantly set alight.

Her desperate need to reaffirm life – _her _life – rages through her. Castle may have taken possession of her mouth but her hands are hot and fast and frantic at his shirt, tugging and ripping at recalcitrant buttons, spreading it swiftly open to expose the moulded muscle beneath. She needs to be skin to skin, _now_, awkwardly forcing her own fastenings undone until Castle seizes her hands.

"No," he states. She emits a displeased noise. "I'll do that. Not you." Agile fingers flick her top open and she presses hard into the hot skin of his chest, frantic for warmth and the beat of his pulse against her chilled body. He holds her as tightly against him as he can, strong grasp bringing her as close as she can be.

"Let go," he murmurs deeply. "Stop thinking." He skims lips over her neck, floats fingers over her stomach, leashed power in each contact, in the intent in his face. When he nips very carefully below her ear she shudders and her head falls back to open the curve of her neck to him. She locks her fingers in his hair so that he doesn't stop licking or nipping on that precise spot, which is leaving her wet and whimpering softly and wanting more.

Castle's firm hand slides up to the undercurve of her breast and plays teasingly, making Beckett squirm and try to arch into his touch. He changes it up, palming and moulding, then first stroking, rolling and lightly pinching at her nipples, takes her mouth again; his tongue swooping and claiming in rhythm with his hand over her breast, his other hand dropping to unbuckle her belt and unbutton her pants, cupping her briefly before catching her tight in again. She gives up all thought and control and allows herself to drown in scorching sensation, fleeing the memories in searing heat, still clutching his hair: needing to touch and feel; to have his hands and mouth and body on her and over her and in her.

"Bed," she gasps out, and brings one hand down over his chest, flicks a flat nipple so that he gasps too, and slips down over his abdomen to the hot hard bulge below, palming across it. Response is immediate: Castle simply stands with her in his arms, takes the few steps into his bedroom, and lays her down across the wide bed. He runs hot eyes over her.

"You're overdressed, Beckett," he purrs darkly. The sound settles over her and muffles her brain. "Let's deal with that first." The purr vibrates over her skin and every sensitised synapse under it, resonating between her legs and turning her hot and liquid and needy.

He lifts her by the shoulders and removes her shirt, not yet unclasping her bra; preventing her when she tries to do that herself and then keeping hold of her wrists while he peels off her pants.

"Fuck me, Castle." She wants the oblivion of his broad body inside her and heavy over her, pushing her down and filling her up so full that there's no room for anything else, losing herself in explosive release, hard and fast and primitive.

"No," he disagrees. "I won't fuck you. I'm going to _make love_ to you until you forget everything." He strips to boxers as he corrects her, then leans over her, covering her body as he kisses her again: deep and slow and forceful and demanding. He's no longer – if he ever had been – asking. He's taking.

He's slow, sure and focused: his mouth assertive, moving over her jaw, her ear, her neck; careful not to mark the translucent fragility of the pale skin. He moves down, her hands sharp-nailed on the muscle of his back as he reaches the mounds of her breasts, the valley between delineated by narrow lace and soft cotton; rubbing the lace against her and flirting the fabric over her erect, over-sensitised nipples, sucking and nipping until she moves beneath him and her breaths become soft gasps. Finally he removes the bra and lets his lips and gently scraping teeth send her higher, send her softly pleading for him to be inside her.

But he won't give her that form of forgetfulness: not yet. He promised to make her forget, to make love to her: not the hard, primitive collisions of the previous times. Other times, maybe that will be appropriate, but not tonight. He nibbles and nips and teases until she's arching into him and making tiny desperate noises, so he reaches one hand down between them and strokes over her thin cotton panties, now soaked and the flesh below heated to his searching fingers. She half-moans and pushes into his hand: he circles her centre with his fingers and her nipple with his mouth and she sighs and shudders sharply and falls apart against him.

He isn't finished by any means. That was only the beginning. He stays where he is, propped on his forearms and settled against the wet heat between her legs: close enough to keep her warm, far enough to let her breathe, and waits.

When her eyelashes flutter he places soft kisses on her cheeks and nose until her eyes open fully, smiles lazily and kisses her deeply, until her gaze is hazy with desire again and her body relaxed under his.

"Still overdressed," he notes. One authoritative hand glides over her ribs and waist, down to the edge of the cotton at her hips, teases at the band. Beckett mewls quietly as he sits back on his heels and examines her, heat, appreciation and raw desire in his look.

"Come back, Castle." She reaches for him, and he takes her hands and pulls her up astride him where he can cuddle and cosset her close.

"I'm right here."

She shimmies against him, and makes a foray to try to explore his boxers. He's rigid and hot between them.

"Uh-uh. I'll decide the plays. I'll make you forget. Lie back down." He pushes her gently flat again, still watching with that hot, intent gaze, catches the elastic of the panties and rolls them off to leave her completely naked before him. Then he dips back to the bed, kisses a wet line down the centre of her body and then puts his mouth on her. She bucks, panting and breathing deeply, and he holds her in place so that he can use tongue and lips and teeth to melt her into fluid need, emitting small noises and trying to writhe against his hands. She's pleading once more for _more, anything, don't stop_ as he removes his shorts with one hand and rises over her to slide home and fill her as she wanted. Her leg twines around his waist and she's tight and hot and he wants her here, like this, with him, forever, and he thrusts hard and circles the nerves and swallows her soft cry as she makes it and finds his own release in her shattering around him.

He snuggles them both under the bedclothes and holds Beckett spooned close into him. She's wholly limp, and if she isn't asleep she's the next best thing. Shortly, he follows her, heedless of the implications for the morning.

* * *

Beckett wakes briefly in the night, phantoms from her father's last minutes haunting her dreams, curls into Castle for protection without really understanding what she's doing and falls asleep again immediately. When she wakes she's alone in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room and the light is streaming through a chink in the curtains. Just before she really starts to panic she realises that this is not – quite – the self-destructive actions of her nineteen-year old self after her mother's death but Castle's loft, bedroom and bed. Apparently minus Castle.

And then the world crashes in on her with the memories following and she smothers her face in the pillow and can't stop the bitter tears. Her father is _dead_ and she couldn't save him. In fact, she precipitated it by being caught on film in an apparently dangerous situation, with Castle. And her being with Castle had triggered his memories. The only thing she _does _know is that it's not Castle's fault. Absolutely not. Because _anything_ about that situation would have triggered her father's memories and drinking. It was a murder investigation. That's all it had taken, so many times. Castle was wholly irrelevant. If she hadn't been a cop, on the other hand… she wouldn't have been in that situation at all, and he couldn't have seen it, and… The tears flow harder, but the pillow absorbs both moisture and noise. No-one will hear her.

If she hadn't been a cop… What good has being a cop done her? She hasn't solved her mother's case, her job had sent her dad looking for amber oblivion in a glass bottle, but he only found the permanent oblivion of death. Being a cop has left her bereft of family and wholly alone.

So she's committed the cardinal sin of falling back on a guaranteed route to her own oblivion: selfishly taking from someone else's strength and body. Her self-justification of yesterday evening seems hollow and dishonest to her now: last night's thinking was simply a pretence so that she could find ease and forgetfulness. Now she'll have to face Castle and his daughter knowing that she used him in the most basic of ways and is, worse, in no place to give him what he deserves. He wants a relationship where he can _make love_ to her. She doesn't want him to want that: she can't deal with him thinking she's worth more. She should have stopped right then when he said it, but she didn't. She just took what she wanted. Sick loathing of her own actions crawls through her.

Suddenly she can't bear to stay: she has to get up, dress, leave; hope he'll forgive her the actions of the last three days. She rises, and winces at the remnants of the previous evening, wipes frantically at herself to clean her skin, but not her conscience, in lieu of a shower. She has no right to more than a dignified exit, and she needs to be home. She dresses, a pervasive sense of disgust at herself enrobing her with yesterday's clothes, and listens carefully before she emerges. Alexis is not there. Castle is there, pensively contemplating his coffee and looking unusually thoughtful.

* * *

Castle had woken much earlier and had achieved a shower, shave and then dressing without Beckett so much as twitching. His coffee is currently the recipient of a variety of musings on how to ensure that he wakes next to Beckett as often as possible. Failing that, which will take a little time, he's pondering how to support her through the next few days and the funeral. She hasn't mentioned when that will be, he notices. Insecurity leaps up. Doesn't she want him there? Why doesn't she want him there?

He hears a step behind him, and turns to greet Beckett. His _Hey_ breaks on her expression. She looks…_ashamed_? And bitterly unhappy. This is not good. He stands up, intending to reach for her, but she steps back before he even begins the gesture. And then he watches, appalled, as her walls come right up and whatever that emotion is, or was, and whatever openness he thought he'd discovered – is gone, leaving only a bass note of disquiet and the memory of her father's words.

"I'm sorry," she says, and though her lips are white her voice is calm and steady. "I should have gone home last night." Her tongue touches her lips in a quick gesture of nervousness. "I… I shouldn't have come at all, dropping my problems all over you." She stops, and his hope that she'd let her words spill out and relieve his worry by showing that she wants him, and needs him, dies. "I need to go home. I've got so many things to do. I have to get started."

He finally finds some words.

"Doing what, Beckett? It's Sunday." She won't even look at him now, staring into the floor at her feet.

"I need to get home. " He doesn't like her tone: flat and quiet and calm, but with an undertone of desperation. He doesn't like it at all. "Thank you for dinner. It was just what I needed. It really helped, but now I need to go home and deal with everything." She's saying all the right things, in all the wrong way.

"Okay," he says. "But I'm going to walk you home."

"No. You don't have to." He sees realisation of her mistake dawn on her. "I don't want you to."

"You don't want me to or you think you shouldn't ask or you think I shouldn't want to?" The flash of guilt across her face tells him what he needs to know. It's all three. He should have expected this; he should have known; they've been here before. It just didn't get quite as far the first time. He looks straight at her. "You're in no state to be on your own." She isn't. So whether she wants him to or not, he's going to make sure she gets home safely.

"I need to go home," she repeats: a mantra that she's clinging to.

"Fine, but you're not going on your own." Castle's using the same brick wall technique he's used for other things, mainly when he doesn't like the answer he's getting. Maybe if he walks her home, she'll let her walls back down again.

"I want to be on my own. I've got too many things to do to be good company. I'm sorry."

"You can be on your own when I've walked you home. I just want to make sure you get home safely."

He sounds as if he's doing this out of necessity, nothing else. Still, if he insists. It's easier to give in. Anything, so long as she gets home soon. "Okay."

Castle doesn't hear anything in that except Beckett's desperation to get out and get home. He's pretty sure what's happening, but he can't push her further. This is not a good time to push her further. He's just relieved that she hasn't used the one argument he couldn't have resisted: _I want to be alone to grieve_. But it hurts that she won't stay, and doesn't want him to walk with her, and both strengthen his insecurity.

She stays a clear distance away from him in the elevator, in the entryway, on the sidewalk. She's leant on him far too much, in these three days, and she needs to start standing on her own feet. There's too much that she has to deal with, up till the funeral. After that… she doesn't know.

Five steps along the sidewalk Castle places his arm definitively around her, hoping that it'll improve matters. "Come here, Beckett." He tugs her inward. She neither consents nor resists. The festering hurt does not improve. She won't lean on him, and a thin snake of worry coils in his gut. He remembers her father's words, again.

"You don't need to do any of this," she says. "I've got to deal with everything. You don't." She stops speaking for a while, unresisting and uncommunicative. His sense of wrongness steadily increases. They're almost to her block when she speaks again, in a dead, unhappy tone. "You've done quite enough for anyone."

Castle completely misunderstands her meaning, already set off-balance by his own worry, her need to leave this morning and her continuing unhappy silence. He'd been wrong. Totally wrong. She'd been ashamed because she'd fucked the man she blames for her father's drink-sodden death. Nothing to do with her feeling that she shouldn't ask him for help at all. The guilt he'd felt on hearing her father's reasoning for his drinking rises over him.

"I guess if you feel like that I'd better go." Bitterness wells up. "I don't want to remind you of your loss." He moves away from her.

"What the hell? What are you talking about?" For the first time this morning there's sharp personality in her voice. She looks searchingly at him. "Castle, what do you mean?"

He doesn't answer for a moment. "It's not important," he says. Beckett almost lets it go: the weight of her own misery enough without another woe, but a darkness in the subtones of his voice catches at her.

"Coffee, and you explain what the hell that meant," she says bleakly, and places a hand round his wrist. She forces him to follow her into her building and up into her apartment.

* * *

_Thank you to all who are (still) reading after the previous chapter. Your thoughts are appreciated._


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25: Don't make it bad**

Beckett makes coffee. The instant problem of Castle's sudden switch in mood from the steady support of the past days (she winces again at the extent to which she's leaned on him) to the apparent coolness of this morning; his turning away and intending to leave, gives her a point on which to focus. It means that she doesn't need to think about anything else. Specifically, she doesn't need to face the list of matters she has to deal with.

It occurs to her that if she'd wanted to stop leaning on Castle – and indeed if she had wanted to ensure that she wouldn't be able to – she could just have allowed his words and leaving to pass by, and let him go. That, however, would have been even more appalling than her actions last night. None of this is his fault. It's hers, for dumping all her troubles on him and expecting him to make it better when she gives him nothing back.

"Okay, Castle." It's an interrogation tone. "What is going on here?" He stays silent, and doesn't touch the cup of coffee in front of him. "How can you be reminding me of my dad?" She forces back a sudden sting of tears, and paces restlessly about the room. When he remains wordless, it's too much to take. She doesn't understand why he's even bothered to come up. It's not as if she could have made him, if he'd resisted. The only thing she can think of is that he can't find the words to tell her the truth: that he's had enough.

"Fine. I get it. I should never have asked to come over last night. That's okay, I won't bother you again. I'm sorry about everything. I'll see you when a body drops?" She stops at the window, her back to the room. Her voice has been wholly controlled. Her face… is not. She's now wholly sure that she's misunderstood. She'd needed someone – him – so badly that she'd failed to see that she'd asked for far too much.

There's no sound behind her. She doesn't move. "You needn't stay when you don't want to. I'll be fine. None of this is your fault. I should never have mentioned any of it to you in the first place." She continues to stare out the window. He continues to be silent behind her. She moves to her desk, back still to Castle, and pulls her lists towards her. Small smudges appear on the ink. "Go home. It's okay. I'm fine." A few more smudges. No-one could tell her devastation from her voice. She's asked for too much, and she won't ask for anything more, including an explanation. She leans her chin on her hands and waits for the door to open and shut.

It doesn't. She summons up a brisk tone, and keeps herself turned away. "Why are you here? You didn't have to come up. You've made it clear you've done enough for me. You don't have to explain what's wrong. You don't owe me anything." And finally there's a reaction.

"You're the one who said I'd done quite enough. Can't you find the words to say the rest: _I blame you?_"

She spins round, horrified, cuts in. "Blame you? For what?" Suddenly it hits her. He'd heard her father back in the hospital. "_This is not your fault_," she grits out. "If it hadn't been that, it would have been something else. He was never going to stop. Anything would have done to start him up, because he _wanted_ to drink." She stops and regroups. She is not going to unload the grief and guilt she bears because she wasn't enough to save her dad. "He'd have drunk himself to death whatever. You had nothing to do with it."

She takes a breath, and the next step to resolve the situation. "Don't worry. Go home and don't worry about it. I'll see you when the next body drops. It isn't your fault and I don't blame you. I never did." She turns back to the lists. She needs to stand on her own feet. Starting now.

"Beckett…" Oh, _shit_. Castle's patented guide to how to fuck matters up, chapter one. _Think it's all about you, when it's nothing to do with you at all._ How did he get to that conclusion, anyway? Oh. Because he'd watched as her father told her so, and hadn't expected her to discount it so quickly and so completely. Hadn't trusted her to, in fact. Oh, _shit_. She'd trusted him, and he hadn't trusted her at all.

"I can't deal with anything more. It's too complicated." Hell. Beckett's shutting him out again.

"Beckett…" he starts again, unsure how to explain. "I thought you believed it when your dad said…" He doesn't get a chance to finish.

"If you'd lived with an alcoholic, you would know not to believe them. You haven't. It's not your fault that you don't know the drill. They lie. They have all sorts of explanations for why they drink. All sorts of reasons. But all of them are lies. They drink no matter what. No-one's to blame. You're certainly not to blame." But she should have explained. She should have seen it and explained. It's too late now.

"Castle, you shouldn't blame yourself. It's just making things harder. It's not your fault. I never believed it was. Please _go home_." She can feel her tears running down her face. She's been ridiculously dependent on him, and she's paying the price. Borrowed too much from his strength, and all he thought was that she's blaming him for her father's death. No wonder he's had enough: he really believed she was just using him. Which, in the cold light of this morning and his words, she was.

She might as well have slapped him. He's making things harder? He's been making things _easier_ for her. She's come and leaned on him every time she's needed help. How can she say he's making things _harder_? And then, the shock of the comment jolting him into some sort of sense, he understands. She's removing him, because she has no emotional space to deal with his misunderstanding. So he has made things harder. Oh, _shit_.

"Beckett, I'm sorry. If you don't blame me, then let me help. Talk to me. Tell me what's wrong. "

"There's nothing more you can do. You've done far more than anyone could ever expect." She's cool and remote and he can't see her face at all. "I have to deal with things myself now. I need to get on with it. You don't need to worry about my problems. I'm sorry about yesterday. It wasn't fair. I shouldn't have come over."

He recognises the implacability in her voice. This is not going to work. She's put her walls up and nothing he can say is going to change her mind. Nothing he can – say. But there is something he can do. He moves up behind her where she's hunched over her desk. The self-protecting posture stabs into him. He puts a hand tentatively on her shoulder. It takes him the space of three breaths to realise that she's crying, silently.

"I asked you to let me get on with everything, Castle. I'm going to be busy." Her tears don't show in her voice at all. He wonders, suddenly, if she developed that trick to talk to her father. It seems so very Beckett, to hide her grief from her father and show him only strength.

He skirts her chair and perches on the corner of her desk; looks down at the top of her head. She shifts her chair away from him, picking up her pen. Every sharp angle of her body is screaming _leave me alone_. Well, he hasn't listened to that since he was eighteen and he's not listening now. The one time he had listened to her telling him to leave had been the worst decision of his life up till then (he's made a few bad decisions since, starting with Meredith and ending with Gina) and he's not repeating that mistake.

"You're crying."

"Congratulations, Sherlock," she says with vicious sarcasm. "My father died two days ago and I'm crying. What a surprise. Were you expecting hysterical laughter?"

Talking clearly isn't going to get him anywhere. So he simply hauls her out of the chair and into his arms and presses her head into the firm muscle of his shoulder and murmurs nonsensically and soothingly into her hair.

It has no effect at all. She's as tense and rigid and uneasy as the very first time she'd said _my dad's an alcoholic_ and he'd pulled her close and she hadn't leaned in at all. The only difference is that she's crying. Still crying, still silent, still strung taut over her own unhappiness and she won't let him help because he's just shown her he doesn't trust her enough simply to tell her what worried him. She'd told him. Beckett, Katie, who never used to tell him anything at all, had trusted him enough to tell him what was wrong, and he couldn't do the same.

"I said I'd still be here when you remembered." He holds her tighter. Instead of accepting him, she changes tack.

"I have to arrange Dad's funeral. You've helped me more than enough. I can't keep leaning on you: it's not fair. You've helped me with everything, and none of it's on you. It's time I dealt with things myself rather than expecting you to sort it out for me. Thank you." She pushes away from him, and opens the door, gesturing him out. " Thank you for all of it. I wouldn't have been able to..." she trails off. "I'll see you at the precinct?" She doesn't sound particularly sure that this is a likely prospect.

Castle doesn't care how she sounds. Beckett, tight-lipped, close-mouthed, master of interrogation and never giving anything away Beckett, has just given away her whole strategy. So that's what's wrong. He's on familiar ground now. She can't win this game. She never had. Except that once, of course. Except that once.

"So that's it," he says, satisfaction at the realisation spilling over his words. "You think you don't deserve any more help." He gazes down at her. "You think you shouldn't have asked for any help at all." A whole lot of little points fall into one coherent narrative. "You think you shouldn't have gone to bed with me – no, you think you unfairly forced me into bed. Used me like a sex toy." He looks at her with some disbelief. "How do you think you would have got me into bed if I hadn't wanted to?" he asks, with more than a hint of amusement. "There's no way you could have managed that. You're not nearly big enough to shift me. Even if you were eating properly you couldn't do it." He grins widely. "And for the record, I'm happy to be your sex toy any time you like."

Her lips don't even twitch. She's stopped the tears, but her face is closed and pale.

"Beckett, I _want_ to help. Why don't you get it? You think I don't know what using looks like? You're not even close. Marrying me for the cash and the kudos and dumping me for a director – that's using." She blinks. "Meredith. My first wife. You met her." Another blink. He reaches past her and shuts the door. He should have done that earlier. He hopes there aren't any page six stringers in this block. "You're not in that league. You're not even in the same sport. I know what using looks like and it doesn't look like you."

He waits a beat. Beckett says nothing. "Come here." She doesn't move. He steps up to her and enfolds her. "It's okay to want someone to help. I'm sorry about your dad. Let me help. You don't have to bear it all yourself."

"I need a shower," she says, inconsequentially, and escapes him again with one twist. She's shut another door in his face and he hears the lock turn. But… she hasn't told him to go again. She hasn't wielded any more hard words or cruelty, just apologised and closed down. (She'd torn him to shreds and shut the door.) She's… slipped away from the situation. He's painfully reminded of the times she'd disappeared because something, always unspecified, had hurt her, and then reappeared later, never to mention it. She's sliding back to her old ways, disappearing into her hurt and blocking everyone out until it's fixed – not fixed. Covered.

He returns to the couch and unthinkingly takes a sip of coffee. It's stone cold. He tips it away and makes himself some more to the soft noise of the shower splashing behind closed, locked doors. (He'd rung and rung, but she'd never come out.) This time, though, he's not staring at the wrong side of the outer door. He's staring at the wrong side of the inner doors, of her apartment and of her feelings. She's shut the inner doors, but she's allowed him to stay within the outer walls. That has to be better, right?

If only he didn't know that if he'd only trusted her enough to ask, if he'd only let her see his own insecurity, then he'd be let inside. Funny that: he'd been so focused on being strong for her, so she didn't need to be strong for herself, that he'd made exactly the same mistake that she had. Both of them trying to pretend that they didn't have insecurities, that they're both strong enough not to need support; both of them not trusting the other to understand. Except that she had trusted him to support her. Right up until this morning when she'd spooked and then he'd – oh _hell_. Confirmed every wrong-headed idea that she'd had that she shouldn't look for support because it's too much to ask.

He sees it clearly laid out: the plot to his book of Beckett. She's insecure and grieving and fragile because she tried to save her father and failed; he's insecure because he thought she blamed him for triggering her father's final, fatal binge; she was scared and ashamed because she thought she'd asked for too much and he was simply scared because she was walking away.

And then, of course, neither of them talked about it. Who cares whose fault it was for not talking first? The net result is this: a closed face behind a closed door and a fight – not even a fight, there hasn't been enough emotion for a fight – that they didn't need to have.

The water has stopped, and there's silence in the apartment, punctuated only by the clicks as he sets his cup down between mouthfuls. More of the cool, remote silence that masks insecurity and swallows hope.

When she emerges she's garbed more formally than a Sunday off should merit: a stiffly collared plain button-down, dark dress pants. Her clothing and her face are equally uninformative. She doesn't seem surprised by his presence, but he senses that she would have been as unsurprised by his absence.

"You're welcome to stay and finish your coffee," she says quietly, "but I've got to sort out my father's wishes before I speak to the funeral director again tomorrow, so please excuse me if I don't join you over there."

She makes herself coffee and sits herself at her desk, picking up her pen and starting to write; more of those endless lists, he assumes. He ought to leave, but he's still trying to find the words to explain his own realisations, because if he leaves now she'll keep the doors shut and never come out. (She'd shut the door and he'd never seen her again.)

"Beckett," he begins, after a few short minutes.

"Mmm?" she hums, not paying attention. He recognises that she has buried herself in the work in front of her: the Kate Beckett solution to all life's manifold hurts. He rises to go over to her, to bring this to a head and let the cards fall where they may.

"Beckett… I'm sorry. I thought you blamed me and I felt guilty, and I didn't realise that you thought you were asking too much. You weren't. You couldn't." She's looking at him, but she isn't seeing him. Her eyes are clouded and far away. He has no idea whether she's hearing him or not. "I said I wouldn't make things harder, and I didn't mean to."

"I know. It's not you," she says softly, and his heart leaps up.

"I wanted you to ask for more. To know you could ask." She's still staring into space, unfocused.

"I see," she murmurs, but he doesn't know what it is that she is seeing, because it surely isn't him.

"I'll be there, if you need me," he says at last, into the encroaching silence. "You only need to ask." He pauses. There's nothing more that he can say. "I'd better go. You have things to do."

And then, amazingly, her hand slips over his and rests there, acceptance and hope from one small movement. "Go home, Castle," she says, but it's not a dismissal, it's a plea. "I need time by myself to deal with everything. I can't get through this if you're here, and I have to get it done." He thinks there's more to that than she's saying, but they seem to be on some sort of even keel again, so he isn't going to ask.

"Whatever you need."

"Right now, I need you to give me time. I'll see you on Wednesday?" There's a note of uncertainty under that. She still doesn't expect him to want to be there?

"Yes." That is definite. She will most certainly see him on Wednesday, especially as he doesn't expect to hear from her at any time between now and then, and he can't contact her, no matter how much he'd like to.

He drops a butterfly kiss on the top of her head, her fingers mesh gently with his, and then he's standing and she sees him to the door and when it closes, though he's on the wrong side, he thinks it's pretty much okay again.

He can't see Beckett, safely behind her door, sinking into her solitary bed and letting all her pain and misery bleed into her pillows, now that she's alone. She's sent him away happy that she doesn't blame him, and now she will stand on her own two feet. Once she's sorted all this out, she can get on with her life. Once she's proved to herself that she can deal, that she's still the strong, competent woman she has been since the day she pulled herself off the path to self-destruction.

Since the day she did what her father couldn't. Saved herself. But she couldn't save him.

Only the pillows know how much she blames herself.

* * *

By Tuesday evening everything is arranged for the quiet, private funeral on Friday which had been agreed on Saturday. The alcohol had gradually driven away any friends her father had once had. He'll be buried next to his wife: buried along with his name. No flowers, no notices, no mourners. No-one except Beckett and the preacher will be there.

She reports to Montgomery first thing on Wednesday morning, and though he shakes his head at her presence he doesn't refuse her the right to work. She asks for Friday off, mentions briefly that it's for the funeral, and doesn't suggest that anyone else should attend. Montgomery says nothing, and thinks the more.

"Okay, Beckett. You're clear to work. But if you need a break, you come see me, okay?" He knows she won't.

By the time the boys get in on Wednesday, Beckett is head down in the enormous pile of paper that has bred in the few days she's been absent and is, from the direction of its travel, planning a hostile takeover of the Robbery division.

"Hey, Beckett," comes from Ryan, in perfect stereo with Esposito's "Yo." There's an awkward pause. "Sorry for your loss," they mumble.

"Thanks," she says politely. It's perfectly clear to both men that she doesn't want to talk about it. This is not a surprise to either of them. She's never talked about anything outside the job to them. Now is no exception.

"Any new bodies, boys?"

"No. Simple killings. Nothing Beckett-flavoured at all. You'll just have to do your paperwork," Ryan points out.

"We saved it for you. Thought you'd be upset if you had nothin' to do," Espo says. Beckett appreciates the cop humour, and the lack of any further comment on her affairs. Conversation rapidly turns to the poor artistic quality of the recent crop of homicides, with particular reference to the tedious simplicity and lack of skill exhibited by the perpetrators.

Neither Ryan nor Esposito mention Beckett's gaunt face and thin wrists, or the dark circles under her shuttered eyes. It's not their place. But even Esposito is only too glad when Castle turns up and there is a brief flash of relief across Beckett's face. Espo may not appreciate Castle, but if he can have Beckett's back in this situation, when it seems that no-one else can, then Espo will be the first to buy him a beer.

* * *

_Thank you for all comments and for reading. _


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26: All the lonely people**

Castle, turning up not much later, just about manages to conceal his disquiet over the way Beckett looks and the intense attention she's paying to her paperwork. Still, he has a plan in mind. Two plans, in fact. Two days of being left to contemplate his own mistake and Beckett's misapprehensions, and with nothing to do but write (extremely extensively, in fact: he's well ahead of schedule and Nikki develops more depth as a character with every day which passes) and think has allowed him to plot.

Plan one involves ensuring Beckett eats and is suitably comforted. Whether that's getting her lunchtime sandwich for her or inviting her round for dinner is irrelevant. Plan two is a little more… involved. The place, date and time of Beckett's father's funeral had been on the top list, and he had been staring at it for quite long enough to decipher Beckett's scrawl. If she mentions it, then well and good. If she doesn't – she needs support, and her team around her. Being a cop is the only thing that matters to her, and the only thing left to her, and he thinks that a show of their respect and support for her would mean a lot.

He also thinks that she'll never ask, and never expect it.

His thinking has also covered a rather deeper analysis of what Beckett had said to him on Sunday. Chief among her words had been a number of comments along the lines of _I shouldn't have asked you for anything_ coupled with that horrible expression of shame and a variety of apologies. It had finally occurred to him that all the time he'd been relieved and happy that she'd not blamed him, he had never actually made clear that he had likewise understood where she was coming from and, if there had been anything to forgive, which there had emphatically _not_ been, he had forgiven. He'd merely told her that she _only had to ask_. Which, he now thinks, might have been another mistake. Asking is not something Beckett is likely to do, given her statements and apologies.

When Beckett conveniently disappears to Archives to look up old records, Castle grabs the opportunity to sidle into Montgomery's office.

"Roy," he says quietly, closing the door, "Beckett's father's funeral is Friday, at three, Cypress Hills. I thought…" he falters slightly under Montgomery's interested gaze "… she might appreciate it if Ryan and Esposito were there. So I wanted to ask if you'd give them leave?"

"Seems like you're asking for quite a lot. Beckett know you're asking?"

"No."

Montgomery smiles sardonically. "You haven't seen this yet, have you? You've not been around long enough." Castle looks baffled. "Of course they'll be going. As will I. It's useful that you've told me the time, though. Beckett didn't mention that." He looks sharply at Castle. "You'll be going?"

"Yes." Castle's iron tone tells Montgomery not to ask too many questions. Such as how Castle knows the time of the funeral.

"Beckett know that?"

"No. Please don't tell her."

"Wasn't going to. If she's forgotten how cops show respect, it's her look out."

Castle and Montgomery exchange identically satisfied smiles. They understand each other perfectly. Beckett isn't expecting anyone. Beckett isn't going to be disabused of that idea. But the four men will be there.

Castle sidles back out and returns to his place. A short interval later, Montgomery summons Ryan and Esposito. A further, very short, interval later they re-emerge. Before they can speak to Castle, Beckett reappears, dusty and with a rather fetching smudge on her nose.

"What's so funny?" she snaps, at the sniggers.

"Look in a mirror, Beckett," Esposito suggests.

"Auditioning for Cinderella?" asks Ryan. Castle says nothing, being some way within the potential range of a well-swung hole punch. Beckett marches off in the direction of the women's restroom. Espo takes the opportunity to get in Castle's face.

"How'd you know about the funeral? Huh?"

"Good luck," Castle says blandly.

"Huh. Respect, bro. You did the right thing. Beers on me, tonight." He's turned back to his desk before Castle can think of an answer. He's not actually sure that this is a good thing. Esposito's respect is worth having, for sure. Beers with Ryan and Espo, on the other hand, is only too likely to turn into another interrogation. Maybe Beckett will come too, and protect him from them.

Looking at her unsmudged face, maybe not. She needs twenty-four hours uninterrupted sleep and a month of good meals. But she's not asking for anything. She hasn't asked for anything. It doesn't look like she's going to ask for anything, either.

At the end of the day Esposito suggests beers at a quiet bar. "You too, Beckett. We'll even give you first call on the fries. Though we'll know how many you've eaten 'cause we'll be able to count them through your ribs."

Beckett musters up half a glare and around a third of a growl. It's more expression than she's had all day. "Not interested, Espo. I just want to go home."

"Lanie's comin'," Espo says.

"I'm not feeling sociable," Beckett says, tiredly. "Get it? I'm not coming." Espo opens his mouth. "No argument, Espo. I'm going home." She picks up her purse and leaves before there's any more discussion.

The bar is quiet. The beer is cold. The conversation is extremely limited. Espo, ably seconded by Lanie, makes a couple of attempts to find out how Castle knew about the funeral time, but Castle bats all insinuations away. Lanie takes a note of the details and tells everyone that she will be there, daring them to object. Nobody objects. Nobody is that stupid. Lanie is still Beckett's best friend, though it's no surprise to anyone, especially Lanie, that Beckett hasn't asked her to turn up. Castle discovers that the boys and Montgomery will be in full dress uniform, and makes a mental note to ensure that he is equally perfectly dressed. He'd always intended to be formal, but now he'll be immaculate.

And all the time they're sipping their beers, the knowledge that Beckett is alone and grieving hangs over them. No-one wants a second beer, and the evening collapses early.

* * *

Beckett has quietly gone home, to be in a place where she needn't hold control. The day had been a significant strain, much more so than she had expected. Work has always helped, before, but today it hadn't had its previous anaesthetising effect. Then again, she's never tried to put aside these precise circumstances. She's never tried to use the work that caused the death to block out the death.

She slumps on her couch and tries not to cry. She's done little else these past three days, her throat too choked to eat much, her mind too busy to sleep well. She's managed the matters she needs to manage: provided copies of the death certificate to everyone who needs it, notified his sister, who is too far away to attend the funeral. After the funeral… she'll be able to deal with anything else.

She'll have to deal with the apartment, and the money matters. She thinks bitterly that the sale of her father's apartment will leave her with enough money to resign: to stop being a cop, if she wants to stop. If she wants to give up the job that hasn't helped her solve her mother's case, that helped to kill her father. The tears stream down her face, again. Montgomery had said he wouldn't accept her resignation, but he can't stop her quitting.

She doesn't know what to do. She loves her job. She's exceptionally good at it. But right now it's all tainted by her father's death. She shouldn't make any decisions now. She's too tired and too strung out and too likely to do something stupid. Stupid just like she's considering now. Because mostly what she's considering is texting Castle, and asking him to come over and just talk to her, to take her mind off everything. However, she's managed to prevent herself asking him for anything since Sunday. She's asked him for enough, and though he'd said _whatever you need_, _you only have to ask_, she doesn't believe that he can have forgiven her. Better not to call, or text. Better to sort herself out, first. Better to take some time, some space.

She sits bolt upright. Take time and space. Get out of Manhattan. Yes. Go and wallow in the happy memories of their upstate cabin, let those memories infuse her grief and change its texture, let them swallow up the last ten years and the memory of pain. Cry, and let the tears wash through her and over her and take away the bad memories, leaving the memory of childhood and happiness. The memory will still be painful, but that pain will help her heal. Yes.

Take time, and space, and start to heal.

She puts her phone away. She has a plan. Tomorrow, she'll ask for leave. She'll tell the boys that she's going, and Castle both where she's going and that she likely won't call while she's away, because she's taking time to sort things out. This way he won't be upset by her silence, and when she comes back she'll have worked out what she's going to do with her life. Maybe by the time she comes back he'll have forgotten how selfishly she behaved. She'll be able to start again. She hopes she'll be able to start again.

More eased, and consequently in a slightly brighter mood than she has been since waking on Sunday, Beckett indulges in a long, hot, soothing bath. She's clean and slightly damp around the escaping tendrils of her hair, snuggled into a silky pair of short pyjamas and reading an old book when the doorman buzzes. She puts down _Don Camillo_ and answers.

"Miss Beckett, it's Mr Castle. Do you want to see him?" The doorman, in the mysterious way of doormen, knows all about what has happened and is being extra careful to check whether she wants to see anyone. She hadn't expected Castle: after all, he'd been with her in the precinct all day. If he comes up, though, she can explain about getting out of Manhattan without having to worry about the boys' interestedly flapping ears.

"Send him up, thanks."

A moment later there's a rap on the door. She's just had time to throw a robe on over her pyjamas.

When she opens the door Castle's big blue eyes are looking softly at her. She waves him in and shuts it behind him.

"Coffee, Castle?"

"Yes please," he agrees. He wanders over to the couch and then wanders over to the kitchenette where she's fiddling with mugs and coffee and French press. "Can I help?"

"You can carry the tray." She smiles. It's a faded smile, but it's a smile. She finishes making the coffee and steps back to let him do the heavy lifting. He settles the tray on the table, himself on the couch, and waits to see what will happen.

What happens is Beckett settling herself on the couch, not, unfortunately, tucked against him, but not at the other end, or worse on a completely different chair. Neutral, tending to positive.

"I'm glad you showed up," she says. Really? This is good. "It'll be easier to talk to you about this when it's not in the precinct." Uh-oh. This isn't so good. "I'm going to ask to take some time off. Get out the city. Clear my head." She pauses. "I probably won't want to talk to anyone while I'm there. I… I need to think, and I can't think here."

"Where?" It's all he can think of to say. Leaving Manhattan? Taking time off? _Cutting contact_?

"Upstate. We" – she grimaces briefly – "I – have a cabin up there. We used to go…" she trails off and her face twists. "Anyway. I'm going to ask Montgomery for two weeks, starting Friday. I just wanted to tell you I was going, without Ryan and Espo ear-wagging, so you didn't expect me or turn up for nothing." She's resolutely neutral. She carefully doesn't say _so you didn't worry_, or_ so I didn't upset you_. Those are assumptions she doesn't have the right to make.

Castle doesn't know what to say. She's disappearing. The only difference is that she's told him she's going. She's also told him she isn't intending to call. Then he notices that she hasn't told him where the cabin is, either. _Upstate_ covers an awful lot of ground.

"Oh," he says, inadequately. Beckett sips at her coffee and evidently feels that there is nothing more to be said about it. "What will you do there?" he asks, eventually.

She shrugs. "Hike, fish, maybe camp out. Read a bit. Get close to Nature." Her face twists again. Her mother used to call it that. She'd not appreciated camping with her parents after she was thirteen, until she understood that it would never be possible again. She blinks rapidly.

Next thing she knows, there's an arm round her and Castle has shuffled up right next to her, enveloping her in his warmth and the scent of slightly spicy cologne. She makes a concerted effort and holds back the tears. He pats her tentatively.

"How can you fish?" he asks blankly. "You're a city girl." It gives her the chance to pretend that it's snapped her out of her melancholy.

"Oh, Castle, I can do lots of things. So many things, you wouldn't believe." She even manages to imbue it with her patent mix of snark and seduction. There's a noticeable hitch in the patting. She's just congratulating herself, slightly bitterly, on her acting ability, when he starts patting again, rather less tentatively and rather more assertively.

"Nice try, Beckett. I don't believe you, though."

"Don't believe what?"

"Don't believe you can go hiking. Or camping." She bristles. Castle smiles to himself. He has a plan to disperse some of her unhappiness, even if it's a temporary dispersal.

"Why not?" she snips. Irritation is beginning to outpace upset.

"Your heels would get caught in the first rabbit hole. Then you'd fall over. Probably break your ankle. And there wouldn't be anyone to rescue you." He looks mischievous. "You'd have to call me. I'd rescue you." _Three…two…one… Boom!_ And there she goes. Beckett-normal, momentarily restored. Now to keep it there for a while.

Beckett acquires an expression of familiar irritation. "You? Mr Metrosexual? You couldn't even follow a signposted hiking trail, never mind rescue me. And for your information I wouldn't need rescued because I wouldn't be falling into rabbit holes. The only person who'd fall into a rabbit hole is you. Not that this would make any difference. You're already in Wonderland, Alice."

Castle looks even more irritatingly smug. "Actually, I'm quite good at tracking." Beckett looks thoroughly disbelieving.

"You?"

"Me. Research. I met this American Indian… he showed me a lot of interesting ways to track someone."

"And what do you use it for? Searching out sibilant similes? Pursuing the perfect polysyllable?" She's getting caught up in the banter, forgetting for now the stresses of the day, returning to her previous ease.

"It's so _hot_ how you say those words. Sibilant. Polysyllable. They drip off your tongue. Say them again, Beckett. Oh, please say them again."

"I am not indulging your verbal foreplay fetish." She realises the major mistake she's made just too late to stop her sentence in its tracks. His face changes, and the arm round her shoulders tightens.

"Oh, Beckett. That's so unkind. Still, all is not lost. How about I indulge your fetishes instead?" Or at least her need to be made to forget. Failing that, he'll pet her till she falls asleep. That should take around five minutes. It's depressing how fast she falls asleep when confronted by his sparkling wit and personality.

"I don't have a fetish. So you can't indulge it. So there." Okay, so she's not up for being allowed to forget. If she were that piece of innuendo would have had a rather different answer. Still, he'll just wind her up a little first.

"Really?" Castle purrs into her ear. It strokes furry syllables all down her skin. She wriggles. His fingers slip over her shoulder to her collarbone. "I don't think that's true. Everybody's got a fetish. Everyone has a reaction to something." His voice drops further. "You could tell me yours." She looks at him agape.

"You are out of your mind."

"I guess I'll just have to investigate." He grins at her horrified look, and compounds his sin by lifting her into his lap.

"What the hell?"

"Well," he purrs seductively, "every time we've been in this position you've had the same physical reaction…" – she stares at him – "…you've fallen asleep – _ow!_" Beckett lands a not-entirely joke punch in his shoulder. "That wasn't nice." He grins evilly at her. "Whatever did you think I was going to say?" She growls, caught out.

"I can't reach my coffee," she complains, changing the subject rapidly before he can say anything even more outrageous. Coffee appears within reach. Castle takes the opportunity his chivalry presents to slip his other arm around her. She can't find the strength or inclination to object. She leans her head into his neck and stays quiet. It's very peaceful. Despite Castle's suggestive words, he seems perfectly happy to provide platonic affection.

The last dregs of her coffee don't seem to have provided any caffeine. At least, there's nothing that's helping her stay awake. The stress of the day, and now the removal of that stress and the soothing effects of the warmth and scent of large, comforting male around her, is catching up with her. She ought to ask Castle to go, and retire to bed herself. She makes a considerable effort, and straightens up. Castle rumbles unhappily as she moves, and then sneakily tucks her back down by going back to patting her comfortingly so that she's practically obliged to resettle against him.

"I'm tired, Castle. Not good company." She just manages to avoid adding a sentence containing the words _I_ and _bed_ in any combination. Mainly because it would also contain the words _will you stay_.

"So just stay here. If you move it'll only make you more tired and you won't be able to move anyway." The logic – or lack of logic – of that sentence is ridiculous. But the idea of not moving is extremely pleasant. She's very comfortable.

"I'm glad you came, but now you should go home," she yawns. "I'm falling asleep."

"I'll go in a few minutes." He pets her gently. Even _thinking_ about moving suddenly seems too much effort for her.

Castle smiles slowly where Beckett can't see – not least because her eyelids are slowly descending – and thinks that while he may not have achieved his goal of explaining, in words, his position with regard to providing support and comfort, he has at least achieved the provision of comfort without any more unnecessary argument. He's still not precisely flattered by the soporific effect he appears to have on Beckett, but given that she looked as if she hadn't slept since Sunday it's not surprising. It occurs to him that she'd slept heavily and late on Saturday night through Sunday morning too. Hmmm. It doesn't seem coincidental.

No more than five minutes later Castle is perfectly sure that Beckett is soundly asleep. He rises extremely cautiously to avoid the twin perils of waking her and putting his back out by lifting her, and repatriates her to her bedroom, tucks her neatly into bed, pecks the top of her head and leaves before he can do anything stupid, such as calling his mother to ensure she's at home tonight and then staying right here.

But that would be a bad idea, for so many reasons. He'll wait. For a while, until she comes back to Manhattan. And then he's going to put this on the right footing. They're so nearly there.

Just a little longer. He's unknowingly waited fifteen years, he can wait another fifteen days.

* * *

_Thank you all: I really like knowing what you think._


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27: Walks from the grave**

Thursday passes uneventfully. Beckett remains head down in paperwork, pausing only briefly to apply for and be granted her leave request, starting immediately after the funeral. The boys are less than impressed that she's going out to the boondocks, but mostly because she'll be deprived of all the necessities of life such as take-out. They are unconvinced by her assertion that she can cook.

Communications are limited, just like yesterday, and the day passes quietly. Beckett becomes more and more withdrawn into a pool of reserve as time goes on, steeling herself for the following day and the funeral. Shift ends, and Espo leaves; Ryan leaves shortly after; and shortly after that Beckett suggests to Castle that he leaves.

"What are you going to do, Beckett?"

"Finish up, go home." Castle believes that. She just hasn't mentioned a timescale. He doesn't ask how long she'll be. He won't push her into a lie.

"Glad to hear it, Detective," Montgomery says briskly from behind her. "You've got fifteen minutes. After that I'm kicking you out."

Beckett is not at all happy about this. She had planned to work until her eyes were practically closing themselves, possibly punctuated by a spell of hard work in the gym, and only then go home. That way she wouldn't have any time to think about tomorrow until it arrived, and though work has been barely less stressful than yesterday, it's better than staring at the walls with the memory of her father's degraded death playing on endless loop in her mind.

Montgomery looks meaningfully at Castle over Beckett's unwary head. A brief communication passes between them. Castle resists a strong urge to say _Yes sir_ and instead nods once.

"Beckett, come back to mine for dinner."

She's about to refuse politely when she becomes aware of Montgomery's still looming presence and a very clear indication that she should accept. Even though he has absolutely no right at all to tell her what to do outside the precinct she knows what he expects. And, of course, it means she's not staring at the walls.

"Okay. Thank you." There's a wash of silent approval behind her.

Castle's hopes that dinner will allow him to provide Beckett with support, comfort, or anything she likes are cut short. (He doesn't even start to consider providing anything more physical than hugs, for once. She's far too tired and unhappy.) Beckett informs him that she really wants to be home by nine, and though she consents to be provided with dinner, she leaves on a tide of polite farewells and thanks immediately afterwards. He receives a short text later, simply thanking him – again – and telling him that she had needed to be on her own.

She hadn't been able to cope with the happy family atmosphere of Castle's loft today. All three of them, throwing around in-jokes and catchphrases and familial love coated in a thick layer of pretend-sarcasm and affectionately barbed comments. She'd had to leave, or cry, and she wasn't going to do the latter in public. Not good manners, and salt water doesn't improve one's dinner. So now she's home, staring at the walls until it's time to sleep and utterly failing to watch TV, read, or distract herself.

Finally, she goes to bed. Much later, she falls into broken, restless sleep.

* * *

Beckett dresses in stark, unrelieved black and ensures that her hair and make-up are as immaculate as they had been for her graduation from the Academy. It's her last gesture of love and respect for her father as he used to be, even if the only people to see it will be the funeral director and the preacher. She picks up the lilies that she'll place on the coffin, and leaves.

She is at the funeral home in plenty of time. The sight of the coffin leaves her struggling for composure, and it's all she can do not to break down when she puts her flowers on the polished wood. Only she will accompany her father, and so the hearse leaves at once.

When they pull up in the cemetery, Beckett steps out, eyes blurred, and doesn't comprehend for a moment that there are six people at the graveside, not one. It takes a further instant to understand that Montgomery, Ryan and Esposito are present in polished, perfect dress uniform; that Lanie is there in full black, and that Castle is dressed immaculately in a formal black suit and tie. She can't say anything: her throat choked closed. She'd not asked for them to come, she'd not expected it. There was no reason to ask, and certainly none to expect their presence. And yet they're here.

The service is mercifully short. Beckett stands straight and staunchly unbowed until the first clods of earth fall on the coffin, when the finality of her father's death becomes manifest. Still she stands straight, dry-eyed, until all is done. She turns away, and discovers Castle's hand on her back, his arm poised to support her should she need it. Her spine stays stiff, her shoulders set solid, as her team, her friend, her boss and Castle wait for her. She forces herself to speak.

"Thank you all." She meets each of their eyes, sees the support and sympathy for her. "I appreciate it." Inadequate words are all she has. They seem to understand. "I'm going to stay here for a while. I…" – she swallows – "…need some time alone." _With my parents_ sticks unspoken in her throat.

Lanie hugs her. The boys and Montgomery each nod, formally, and Castle follows their lead. Then they file away, and Beckett is left alone between the old grave and the new, head now bent under the bright June sunshine.

It's a beautiful day, if you're not burying your father.

When she's heard the cars leave, and the only remaining sound is the soft rustle of the breeze through the leaves and birdsong from beyond the headstones, she kneels down where she stands between the graves and spends some time in silent contemplation, mourning, asking forgiveness of her dead. That done, she rises, drying her eyes, and drifts, as silent as the dead surrounding her, towards the remains of the day. No hurry, now; no brisk commanding stride; no place to be. Only the quiet murmur of the wind and the gentle call of birds and insects; the light and warmth of the sun on her chilled body. This is how loneliness arrives, not suddenly, but garbed in unrelieved black, carried on the old words of the funeral service: _earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust_. Tears upon tears; solitude swelling and shrouding her as she passes through the dead.

At the roadside, a discreet sedan is parked, Castle leaning on its bonnet. As she approaches, he comes to meet her, and without word or comment gathers her in and brings her close.

It's that which breaks her.

* * *

Castle had departed with the others, leaving Beckett to her privacy. In spare words, it had been indicated that no-one should remain inside the cemetery. In one terse order, Montgomery had required Castle to wait outside. There had been no disagreement. Castle had intended to wait in any event. It had seemed to him that Beckett had dismissed the driver who had brought her here. If not, no loss. If so, then he will take her home.

It's a long time before she emerges, slow and dragging; drifting through the gates as if she trails the ghosts of her dead behind her; as if she's half a ghost herself. She doesn't, he thinks, believe he's there until he moves to catch her. Sobbing in his arms, her too-slender body seems too fragile to bear the weight upon it; cold despite the heat of the day. Sobbing in his arms, she's far too thin, as if a careless touch would snap her; brittle and beautiful as blown glass. He holds her close till the tears run dry, while she leans on him.

He settles her carefully into the passenger seat and comes round to take his place. "I'll take you home." She doesn't reply, but Castle knows that it's because she's too blocked with emotion to speak. He reaches across and puts a gentle hand over hers. After only an instant, hers turns up under his in the old, familiar, automatic fashion, and her fingers curve between his. It feels as if she's clinging to safety. His clasp is firm, transmitting solid strength as best he can, until he has to let go to start the car.

The journey remains silent until Castle pulls up and parks at Beckett's block. He courteously opens the car door, assists her to get out, and escorts her to the door. Beckett turns to him, face drawn, as if she's about to ask something, but then her expression flickers uncertainly and she says nothing. It looks unhappily as if she was going to ask him to come up, and then – still, why is she _still_ so reluctant to ask? – decided that this was, yet again, too much to ask. Well, he is not having that. If she won't ask, he'll offer.

"May I come up with you?" She looks surprised. "You look like you could use some company."

"If you would like. If you have time." She sounds more tired than anything else, her eyes dull.

"Plenty of time. Come on. You need to sit down." He tucks his arm round her and walks her into the elevator, ignoring the interested glance of the doorman, and then into her apartment.

"Do you want a coffee?" Beckett says, before the door is even shut, desperately pretending this is just a normal day, just a normal visitor, just a normal visit. Just something that she can manage. Castle doesn't answer. Instead he gently draws her in and holds her closer.

"Stop, Beckett. You don't need to do anything. Just let go." It takes her a few seconds to comprehend, and then she slumps, strings cut, against him. She stays there for a longer time than Castle expects. In fact, she's run out of all drive and any ability to make a decision. Castle finds it rather reminiscent of the evening he'd brought wine and cupcakes and she'd been too tired to eat or care, only this is far worse.

"Why don't you go and change?" he suggests. Maybe that way she'll at least be comfortable in body. While she's doing that he can make a hot drink – if she has the ingredients, he'll make hot chocolate. She needs something soothing, not a stimulant. Falling asleep wouldn't hurt either. If she's this tired, he sees her point about leaving Manhattan. It's possible that she'll sleep better out of the city. On the other hand, the only time he's been sure she's sleeping properly has been when she's been with him. He considers, briefly and seriously, suggesting to her that she should just sleep with him – no funny business, just sleep – since that's clearly helping her sleep better, and rejects it for the moment, though he preserves the thought for later.

He starts to worry when she obediently does exactly what she's told. While she's gone, he investigates the kitchen, and finds almost nothing of any nutritional value. There is no milk. There is no edible food. There are four less than half eaten takeout boxes, two of which are growing biological cultures. He guesses, entirely accurately, that these cover last Sunday through Wednesday. He drops them all in the trash. Then he makes a call to the number he has for emergency grocery or alcohol deliveries (such as when his mother has tried to cook, which tends to limit the supply of both food and liquor) and reels off an order. Unlike Beckett, he doesn't need to think hard to know what should be purchased.

She returns clad in soft sweatpants and t-shirt, but no more connected to the world, drifting in a most un-Beckett like manner on silent bare feet through the room to the kitchen.

"You have no food, Beckett. You have an unregistered research lab, producing mutant penicillin cultures. I threw it all out. It's possible I am the only person who has protected New York from the march of the Petri dishes."

She simply looks at him, blankly. No eye roll, no glare, no snark. Worry increases. This is more like shell shock than anything else. She's retreated right into herself.

"Beckett? I got some food." Nothing. "Pasta, vegetables, bread, milk, hot chocolate."

"Okay." She doesn't sound as if she's paying attention.

"Deep fried crickets, with a side order of witchetty grubs."

"Okay."

"I bought you a pony, too."

"Okay – what?" A spark of life returns to her face. "A pony?"

"No, no pony. Unless you really want one."

"No, thank you." There's a very tiny quirk. "Nowhere to keep it."

"I suppose there isn't a hay bale in Montgomery's office?" A bigger quirk of lips. He takes it as a sign that the universe is on his side and tugs her back into him to hug her. "No? Do you think he'd like one? And the pony?"

"I don't think Montgomery needs a pony, Castle." There's something in her voice…

"Can you ride, Beckett?" There's silence. "You can't, can you?" The silence acquires an _I don't want to talk about this_ quality. "You really can't." He grins widely. "Finally."

"Finally?"

"Finally something that I can definitively do that you can't."

"You can ride?"

"Yep."

"More research? Or just naked police horses?"

"I was naked. Not the horse. It had a saddle and bridle." The grin increases in intensity. "I got a lot of wolf whistles."

"I think that might have been the horse, Castle."

He pouts at her. "Definitely me. I'm far better looking than a horse." She half-raises an eyebrow. "Anyway, I can ride. Research." The pout changes subtly to include a deliberately measured level of seductiveness. "Men on horses are very attractive to women. It's a primitive reaction to watching a man controlling a beautiful, powerful animal with just his hands and body." And that's definitely a roll of the eyes. "It has a lot of similarities to" –

"Shut up."

Inconveniently, the door sounds at that point. "Um… that might be food," Castle says unapologetically. "Your fridge was empty." He opens the door, deals with the delivery man, and shuts it. When he turns round Beckett is drifting aimlessly in the direction of the window.

"Food, Beckett. Dinner."

"Okay." She's not paying any attention again. He'd expected at least some protest at his calm, casual assumption of responsibility and paying for the food. The interruption has been astonishingly badly timed. He'd just managed to coax her into reality, and now it's all lost.

"Shall I cook it?"

"I'm not hungry."

"I'm hungry. And you need to eat." Her face drops. "You're still going to need to eat, Beckett. Even if it's only a little bit." He looks at her carefully. The momentary spark is fading again. Hardly surprising. He goes over to her to hold her again. This time she leans in.

"I don't want to eat. I…" She stops. She knows what she wants. Her mother alive, her father sober, everything the way it should have been – and hasn't been for ten years, and never will be again.

She's desperately stopping herself from crying, again. She feels like a watering can: all she does is drip water all over Castle's wide chest, and it's _pathetic_. It's even more pathetic that she can't bring herself to pull away and stand on her own. He's even offering to make dinner, because she's so damn pathetic that she can't do that either. Not that she wants any food. She isn't hungry. She hasn't been hungry for days, and has only forced herself to eat when there are others around.

She has to snap out of this. She's not going to manage it here, though, with reminders all around her, so it's just as well she's going upstate tomorrow. She'll stop for supplies on the way, and in the quiet rural cabin, she'll be fine.

Somehow, in the course of all this soggy thinking, she's migrated to the corner of the couch and is curled in next to Castle, who is miles away. This is not surprising. If she were next to her current pathetic, tear-stained self, she'd be miles away too. He's here, when he could be home with his family, who are bright and loving and cheerful and everything she isn't. Everything she never has been. She wasn't bright and loving and cheerful when he first met her and she isn't now. He's here, but he should be – surely he should want to be – home with his daughter.

"Don't you have to get home to be with Alexis?" She intends it to sound confident and adult and bright. And cheerful. It's wholly undermined by the wobble in her voice.

"No. She's at a friend's for the night. I'm not wanted." Castle doesn't mention that he'd arranged that, calling in a favour to ensure it, as soon as he'd known the date of the funeral. "I can stay as long as you want me to." He stumbles a little over that. He'd very nearly said _I'm staying as long as I think you need me to_, and while that is precisely what he intends to do, even this drifting, miserably unconcerned Beckett is likely to balk at his laying down the law.

Beckett's only reaction to his statement is to tuck her feet up under her in her corner and stay exactly where she is, propped between the arm of the couch and the arm of Castle. She's not quite dozing but not quite awake. Castle slips off the couch without her really noticing or paying heed to his soft murmur that he's going to make them some dinner. He quietly pads around the kitchenette, rapidly assembling a smooth pasta dish that takes little effort to make and less to eat. He pops it in the oven, which is so clean that he guesses that it has never been used (he's wrong, but not by much), and pads back to the couch.

"Dinner in half an hour," he says gently, cuddling her in. "Pasta."

"Okay." She looks up, eyes huge and smudged purple-dark with tiredness, still damp despite the lack of tears. Castle is in no way proof against it. He's spent the last few hours trying very hard to resist his instincts to kiss her better, and he's run out of resistance. He dips his head and kisses her forehead softly.

It has no effect whatsoever. Which is a considerable relief, now he thinks about it. Because whatever there might be between them, it is not going to be improved by another round of the frantic forgetting that's driven Beckett into bed with him. So he feels completely free to do it again, taking her face between both hands, kissing her brow again and then the tip of her nose. Then he snuggles her tightly into his side with his arm around her, and leaves it at that for now.

* * *

_Thank you all. I appreciate all your comments._


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28: Lean on me**

"Thank you," she murmurs, after a while. Her sad, chill silence has settled like a shroud over the room, smothering conversation and any other emotion. Her skin is cool against him.

"Whatever you need," he replies softly, and lets his fingers stroke soothingly over her hand, lying limp in her lap. He realises at that point that there are drops falling on to his hand. She hasn't cried since she stepped into the car at the gates of Cypress Hills, so it's hardly surprising that she's crying now. But her shoulders are still, there's no noise: she's trying very hard to hide her devastation.

"You're allowed to cry, Beckett." It's almost as if she needs permission to grieve. The tears drop faster, and finally she lets her physical control fall away and weeps properly, full force. She shudders convulsively.

"I want my life back," she emits. "I want my dad, like he was. I want my mom." She sobs, and attempts to choke it back, silence the noise which is loud in the room. "It shouldn't be this way." She turns fully into Castle. "It's not fair," she weeps. "My parents don't deserve to be dead." He pets her gently, holding her in, and waits for the tempest to pass. She's still weeping, though, when the oven beeps. It seems that, finally having begun to cry again, she can't stop. It's probably a good thing, but he hates to see Beckett, who's normally as strong as steel and twice as rigid, broken and bleeding. Burnt dinner, however, is not going to improve anything. She has to eat something.

"I need to get that out the oven, before it chars," he points out, and unpeels himself.

"I don't want to eat," Beckett says, and then, very quietly, "I just want held." _What the hell?_ He's fairly certain he wasn't supposed to hear that, but he has. He spots an opportunity.

"Eat some dinner, Beckett, and I'll stay with you. Okay?"

She looks up at him woefully. " 'Kay."

Castle finds plates, utensils and glasses; fills a jug with water – definitely not wine – and sets the table efficiently. Then he pulls Beckett gently out of her waterlogged corner and walks her to the table. He's set it so that he's sitting next to her, not opposite, and when he's put out dinner and sat down next to her his arm snakes back round her.

She ingests a mouthful. It might have been a sufficiently large mouthful to choke an ant, but he isn't certain. But then she has another, and then some more. He hadn't given her much, so as not to overwhelm her, and it looks like that had been the right call. He eats his own portion, and doesn't make a single comment when she sets her fork down, plate largely clear. It looks very like grief and eating has exhausted her meagre strength.

"There's ice cream, if you wanted," he suggests. She shakes her head.

"No, thank you." Definitely exhausted. Standing up is almost beyond her, it appears from the rather alarming wobble when she does. He's not carrying her, exactly, but he's supporting a lot more of her weight than he ever usually has when she's on her feet. _Usual_, in this context, meaning _none_. He's very tempted simply to sweep her up in his arms, but he thinks that he should leave her some dignity. Dignity, after all, has carried her through this day, has kept her eyes dry and her head unbent almost throughout. But he is horrified, invisibly, that she is lighter and thinner and sharper-cut than even last Sunday.

They sit back down. When Beckett flicks a habitual glance at her watch, though, her face contorts. She doesn't break down again, but she shivers, and shivers again. " 'S late," she says, voice very strictly controlled. "You don't need to stay."

"I don't need to go, either." He takes a chance which he thinks is a dead – _ow,_ _bad word choice, Rick_ – certainty. "Especially as you don't want me to." He doesn't expect an answer, and is not disappointed. A moment later, however, he's astounded.

"No…" He stares at her. "Don't go yet." She burrows into him. She's chilled, and still shivering, and Castle is so very warm. "I'm so cold." He wraps her into him, and it feels so very comforting. She nestles in.

It doesn't seem to matter how closely he holds her, how tightly his arms are around her, he can't stop her shivering. "Beckett," he murmurs, a question building in his tone, "Beckett, are you still cold?"

"Yeah."

"I think you'd be warmer if I got a blanket, or a sweatshirt. Or something to wrap you in."

"I'm just tired. That's all. I'll be fine."

"Come on, then." He stands up, picks her up with disturbing ease, and ignores her weary protest to carry her through to her bedroom, then places her gently sitting against the pillows on one side of the bed and pulls back the covers on the other side.

"Snuggle down, Beckett, and I'll tuck you in." She doesn't move. A very peculiar expression flits across her face, gone before he can pin it down.

"It's okay, Castle. I can get myself to bed." She's assembled some considerable control. He doesn't understand her comment. Ten minutes ago she'd asked him not to go. Now she's backing off – oh. She won't ask for more. She's curled into herself, wearied, chilled and grieving – but she won't ask for anything.

"I'll tidy up," he says experimentally. Another flitter, the same expression, but this time, watching for it, he's clocked it. Hurt abandonment. Her family's abandoned her, today.

He won't.

"I don't have to go, if…" He stutters to a halt. Her face has twisted and she's suspiciously damp around the eyes. She's forcibly stopping herself crying, again. He thumps down on the bed beside her and hugs her back in. "Hey, shh. Don't cry. I'm not going anywhere." _I didn't go anywhere the first time. You left me. I'm not leaving you now._

"Not crying," she mutters, lost in his shirt. And then, "I want you to stay for a while. Just hold me, Castle. Please. I don't want to be alone before I sleep." It's a request he would never – never be able to – refuse. But…

"Shall I give you a few minutes to wash up?" He'd gladly undress her, but the last thing this – any of this – is about is sex, and he isn't going to have another go-around of the night after her father died. She can't take that, even if she were to initiate it. He certainly won't start it. She's asking, however reluctantly, awkwardly and obliquely, for him to take care of her, and he's not going to spoil it. He wants her to be able to rely on him, and the protective streak in him is screaming to protect her.

"Yeah…" It's dragged out. He retreats to the main room and swiftly tidies up. When he returns she's already tucked in, buried beneath a barrow load of blankets and a pile of pillows. She must have put more on: he's sure there was only a comforter mere moments ago. He sets his alarm – he will need to be home by noon for Alexis being back from her sleepover – has a very quick wash, cleans his teeth with a blob of toothpaste on his finger (it's amazing what forgetting a toothbrush on a camping trip will teach you) and slides in behind her, slipping an arm over her waist and pulling her back against him. She doesn't protest, or resist, or assist; simply makes a sleepy little noise of acquiescence and is immediately bonelessly limp. Once he's sure she's asleep – around ten seconds later – he shoves the pile of blankets away before he expires, broiled in his own skin, and returns the bed to containing only Beckett, the comforter, and him. He'll keep her warm. He's never cold.

* * *

His alarm beeps quietly at eight. Castle struggles out of sleep to silence it and discovers that waking up with Beckett tucked safely into his arms is something he could stand much more of. He'd started to think about that on Sunday, but then, becoming slightly preoccupied with his unpleasant worm of guilt about her father and later his normal parental duties, he had parked it. However, his previous worries about Beckett blaming him completely assuaged, he is currently in a very good position to enjoy it. In fact, it's amazing. She's soft and relaxed against him, totally trusting. And, of course, sound asleep. Only one of those three states will still be true when she wakes, but it's the important one. Trusting.

He stays happily cuddled in. He does wonder if Beckett is actually a cuddler when she's _not_ in the midst of massively stressful, tragic situations – it seems moderately unlikely, which is a little sad – but since the main point is actually being in the same bed at the same time, cuddliness can be whatever it is. For now, he'll lie here and definitely enjoy it.

So he does, for the five minutes until he remembers that Beckett is leaving town today, to go to some upstate rural hick cabin from which she's said that she likely won't call. He understands that she needs to think in peace, but… it seems a very lonely way to proceed. It seems, actually, like the grown up version of Katie's disappearing act. Ah. That's exactly what it is. Disappear, deal with the issue, return, and never mention it again. He _knows_ this. Why is he at all surprised?

He realises that it's because he'll miss her. Even if she's grieving and unhappy, he'd far rather be with her than not. He doesn't like the idea that he won't see her or talk to her. But. Very important but. He absolutely has to give her the space she needs. This is not some claustrophobically close teen relationship where he demanded her attention and spent every available minute with her. This is supposed to be an adult, intelligent relationship. And she _told_ him that she'd need space, and time, and said in plain words that if she didn't call, or wouldn't see him, that it was because she didn't have the capacity at that moment to cope. So he needs to respect that.

He'd hated it just as much when (before Alexis, Alexis is the one person whose demands for attention he had always, always answered, mostly without resentment – no parent in the world has never, ever been resentful of their child's demands for attention) Meredith had interrupted him when he wanted a short time to himself; when Gina had pressured him and nagged. He needs space and privacy sometimes, and remembering that helps him remember how to give it to others. To Beckett. Who needs considerably more of it – possibly because she never asks anyone for anything, and never shows weakness, and therefore needs far more time alone – than anyone he's ever met.

There's a small wriggle against him, and for a moment he thinks that Beckett is waking up, but then her breathing deepens again, and it's clear she's still asleep. Once more, she's sleeping long and heavily. He hopes that she'll sleep well in her upstate hideaway, alone. He's not at all convinced she will.

He sneaks out of bed to the kitchen, makes himself a coffee, listening all the while in case Beckett should show signs of waking and find him not there, borrows a random book and repatriates himself to the bed. She hasn't moved, hidden under the covers with only a smudge of dark hair showing.

He's halfway through the book and finished the coffee when she finally stretches and rouses, a flash of panic across her face, dissipating as she focuses on his face.

"Morning, Beckett."

"You stayed?"

"Yes. I said I would," he pouts. "You should believe me."

As she wakes fully her face falls. Reality has obviously reasserted itself. "Thank you." She looks a lot less exhausted but no less unhappy. That feels like a win, in the circumstances. For a moment she simply lies still, no spark, no energy. Then he watches her hoist her feet out of bed and proceed to the bathroom. A few minutes later she returns.

"Coffee? Breakfast?" she asks.

"Coffee, please." He collects his mug. "I made myself one earlier." Beckett flicks a glance at him. "You were sound asleep." He takes his mug through and then says that he's going to sort himself out, and asks to borrow the shower.

Beckett stays close all the time she's drinking her coffee. She's trying to find a way to articulate how much she appreciates Castle having stayed all night, without it sounding like insincere gushing, because that's definitely above and beyond what she expected. She'd expected him to stay for a while, and then quietly go home. Even asking for that had cost her. But he's given her a full night of peaceful sleep, which is worth more than she can say.

"Thank you," she says again, heartfelt. "I really…you... it really helped." Thankfully Castle seems to get it.

She has to get going: it's mid-morning and she has a long drive ahead. It doesn't seem as appealing as it did on Thursday. Castle's putting his empty mug down, and making moves to leave. She stands too, waiting as he collects up his jacket and tie, slinging them casually over his arm. Before he turns the handle, he looks very seriously down at her.

"If there's _anything_, Beckett," he says with emphasis, "call me. Anything at all. I want you to. You could never ask too much." He has to tell her that there was nothing to forgive; that she should lean on him.

She doesn't have words to answer that. She doesn't even fully understand it: she'll consider it later. He's still looking gravely at her, as if there's a weight to his words. She still has no words to answer him. But she has to show that she's heard him. She stretches slightly up, wraps her arms around him and kisses him once, brief and hard, sinks down and steps back.

"Thank you," she breathes. "I'll see you when I get back….?" It's more than half a question.

"Count on it, Beckett. I'll be there. You can't get rid of me." He swoops on her, returns a fast, forceful embrace and a kiss of his own, and leaves before he can give in to his inclination to induce explosion.

* * *

Beckett takes a short time to pack, make a shopping list on which coffee figures largely and alcohol not at all, and pull herself together. Then she sets off for Ferris Lake. It's a longish drive at the best of times, four, maybe five hours if the traffic is bad. She won't be trying her usual trick of ignoring the speed limits. The last thing she needs is more complications – on any front. Traffic tickets are a very unnecessary complication.

She reaches Ferris Lake, with supplies, late in the afternoon. She hadn't hurried, in the end, had stopped for a leisurely coffee at lunchtime, though she'd eaten little, still not hungry. The cabin is fairly clean, only a little dusty, still and quiet; the breeze rustling the trees rhythmically, the insects chirping cheerily. She feels a load drop from her shoulders, only from the lack of traffic and sirens and noise and the lack of need to _do_, to act, to be the hard assed, tough-as-tungsten Beckett that everyone needs and expects her to be.

_Except Castle_, points out an insistent little voice in her head. And she remembers how he'd simply held her as she cried, and told her it was okay to grieve, that she's allowed to cry. Castle doesn't seem to mind or care if she's not strong all the time, but here and now, alone, there's no-one at all to know. She does cry, then, a little. She can be as strong or as weak as she needs to be, but no-one will see.

She breathes in, breathes out, replaces traces of city fumes with the clean fresh air of the Adirondacks, eased by the tranquillity around her. She sits out on the porch for a while, savouring the late afternoon warmth and the sun on her face, makes herself a drink and returns outside. She simply stops, letting her mind drift and her body relax. This had been the right thing to do, escaping the city and the pressure and the awful memories. She feels better already, and she's been here only a few hours. She'll just sit here and watch the sun go down, and find peace.

And so she does. When the mosquitoes start to whine, she retreats inside. She'll find the repellent tomorrow. She doesn't need to do it now. She doesn't need to do anything now. She can just sit, and read, and later she'll make some dinner, when she's hungry. And if she isn't hungry, she doesn't even need to make dinner.

Some time later, when she's read, she realises slowly why she's so relaxed. She isn't waiting for the phone to ring. She'll never need to wait for the phone to ring again. The load that has fallen from her shoulders is the constant tension and terrified expectation that every call would be notice that the worst was happening. Well, the worst did happen. It can't ever be that bad again. But, as she had been when she first took her father to Presbyterian, she's ashamed of her relief. She shouldn't be relieved, even if she's also deep in mourning. She should wholly regret her loss. Her stomach clenches, and her shame washes over her.

She's been a bad daughter. She searched her father's apartment, she would have interrogated him as if he were a criminal. She was relieved when the medical staff took the problem away from her. She'd been angry with him for falling off the wagon, over and over; hurt when he wouldn't accept her sacrifice to live with her; resentful of his weakness, which meant that she had to be strong. She'd put her life on hold for him, latterly, and he'd only wanted to die. She couldn't save him, and that's the worst shame of all.

Alone in the still, silent cabin, the gathering night surrounding her, she weeps for shame at her failings, her inability to live up to the woman she thinks she ought to be. The shock of her father's death is not over: her decision to hide her grief in work has masked it. And now it's all crashing over her and she has no-one to lean on. Not that she's realised it. She's forgotten everything she learned in Al-Anon: none of it is her fault, she couldn't save him, feelings of anger and resentment are normal. She forgets that she has hardly eaten at all today, and weeps herself to broken, nightmare-ridden sleep.

She wakes late and heavy-eyed, a headache nagging behind her temples. Her shower relieves the headache only marginally: coffee is barely more helpful. She slumps on her couch, weary before she's fully awake, drifting from doze to daze. She makes herself a sandwich, and eats most of it, till she's too tired to chew anything more, drinks a glass of water and then returns to her unwarranted shame, circling thoughts eating their own tail, and the occasional tear slipping unwanted down her face.

The day is beautiful, but she's cold inside the cabin, and still chilled even when she sits in the sun. She can't seem to get warm. She wraps herself in a sweatshirt and makes sure she's sitting in full sun, and finally, after sitting in the sun till late afternoon, she's less cold. She has a scaldingly hot coffee, and feels it trickle hotly down her throat, heating her stomach. She last felt warm – oh. She last felt warm when Castle was next to her. His large frame has always been warm. He'd said _call me. Anything at all._ Maybe hearing his voice will warm her.

She picks up the phone and dials before she can tell herself it's a bad idea.

* * *

_Thank you to all who are reading, reviewing, following and favouriting. I appreciate all your thoughts._


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter 29: When you're weary**

Castle has spent the day editing. It's not his favourite occupation, to say the least. He hates having to go back and check all the small details, pick up any continuity errors, make sure that any loose ends have been or will be picked up. Murder mysteries need to be tidy. But it's not interesting. Writing is interesting – now that he has his new character and his old Beckett – and fun, but editing is precision work and although he's good at it he'd rather spread the wash of his words broad brush over the pages.

He's just beginning to think about dinner – it's less stressful than fretting about Beckett, which is the other thing he's done all day, and which is even less pleasant than editing – when his phone chirps.

It's Beckett. He almost falls off his chair in his haste to answer. What the hell? She's only been gone a day of her fortnight, and he hadn't expected to hear at all, let alone barely more than twenty-four hours later. He fumbles for the phone and swipes on.

"Castle," he answers, very carefully normal.

"Beckett." That's all she says. There's a silence. He strongly suspects that she has no idea why she's called him. He suspects even more strongly that if he doesn't say something she'll ring off in about another half-second, but if she's gone upstate for space then deep emotional conversations are not what's needed here.

"Bored already?" he smirks into the phone. "I can recommend a good book." _Please let this work._

"That would be your friend Connelly's latest," Beckett snips back, snark on autopilot. _It's worked_. Castle makes a theatrically horrified noise.

"Absolutely not. Nor Patterson's," he says hurriedly. "_Storm Fall_, of course. Or anything else I've written." It's his best I'm-a-star tone, full of smug arrogance. It has only ever had one effect on Beckett – to irritate her into snarking further.

"I can see your ego from here, Castle. Two hundred and fifty miles away. Must be a record. Tell me, do you get calls from the Space Station asking you to tone it down?"

"Ouch, Beckett. That's not nice." But he's smiling, because this is back-in-business-Beckett, not a washed-out disaster zone. Which does not, of course, explain why she has called at all.

"Castle, you're so resilient I could use you for a trampoline."

"You can bounce up and down on me any time, Beckett. Just say when." There's a groan as she realises what she said.

"Shut up. If I want a trampoline I'll go to Toys-R-Us."

"Just so long as I get to watch you bouncing. Would you wear one of those tight, Lycra leotards? With cut-outs, or transparencies?"

"No." That sounds very much like in-charge Beckett again. He makes an obviously disappointed noise. There's a familiar, answering growl. He decides to carry on being irritating. She can't even commit acts of physical violence towards him. Probably. If Espo is knocking on the door shortly he'll know he got that wrong.

"Did you ever?"

"Wouldn't you like to know? If I had, I wouldn't tell you. I wouldn't want to be responsible for raising your blood pressure."

"You can raise it any time. High blood pressure can be very useful, in the right places." There's another groan. He can almost see her eyes rolling. "There must be some photos of you doing gymnastics, or trampolining. I know," he bounces enthusiastically, "you were in cheer squad." There's a short, gaping silence. Oh. Oh shit. He knows perfectly well she wasn't, and didn't, and never would have been – in school. He attempts a hasty cover-up. "In college." The silence is hardly less gaping. "Beckett?" She hasn't – yet – cut the call. She simply isn't saying anything. He listens very carefully, barely breathing in his efforts to hear. He can't hear anything.

Beckett has put the phone away from her and is trying very hard not to dissolve in another pathetic, useless round of tears. There are photos of her, as a small grade-schooler, doing gymnastics. Her mother had taken them, at the gym. Her father had taken photos of her cartwheeling round the yard, as small girls do. She has no idea where any of those photos are. She hasn't done anything about finding any of the remnants of her past: where her father kept all the mementos is a mystery that she hasn't wanted to solve. She'll have to. She'd given up gymnastics, before high school, and never gone back to anything even close. Now, she does yoga, and there are certainly no photos of that.

The phone is making noises. She supposes that she should pick it up again, pretend she's okay. She had been warmer, but now she's cold again. The phone squawks more forcefully.

"Yes, Castle?"

"I thought you'd hung up." He sounds worried. He shouldn't worry. She'd better talk a little longer. Especially as she wants to. Even Castle's voice is warming.

"Nope. Still here."

"Did you go fishing?"

"Not today." He can hear a struggle for composure in her voice.

"Beckett, why'd you call? You can't possibly have stumbled over a body already and need my help to investigate." He knows that this is a dangerous question, like to send her fleeing, but there has to be some truth sometime and anyway she's already fled. All he can do is force concern and supportiveness into his voice and hope that the next thing that happens is _not _the phone going down.

There's a very long silence. Then there's an incomprehensible mutter. Then, finally, "I'm cold." That makes no sense. How does calling him solve it if she's cold? Shouldn't she put on another layer? And it's the end of June, and even if she's practically in Canada (250 miles? He taps fretfully at Google Maps, and comes up with an answer he doesn't like. Somewhere in the Adirondacks, or the Finger Lakes. Aren't there bears, and Bigfoots, round there?) it shouldn't be that cold.

She'd been cold on Friday, too. Oh. She'd been cold and asked him to stay, because he was warm. This cold has nothing to do with the external temperature: it's a chill of the soul.

"I hear it's practically glacial that far north. If you will sit around on the Arctic ice-shelf in skimpy shorts and a tank top what do you expect?" He can't say _Come home_, because she's at her summer home. He can't say _Come back to me and I'll keep you warm_, because in her own small way she is, simply by ringing. But he can rag her, and hope that it works.

"I've got a sweatshirt on," she says, with a very small tinge of annoyance.

"Beckett voluntarily in a sweatshirt? The world will end. All you ever wear are button-downs." He deliberately changes his voice. "_Only_ a sweatshirt?"

"No. Fully clothed. Get your mind out the gutter."

"How very disappointing," Castle drawls. "I was going to ask you to send me a picture." Normally he can reel off innuendo, suggestiveness and outright dirty talk till his partner of choice is soaking with it, not just metaphorically. Normally, of course, he doesn't need to avoid mentioning a shared past, family, parents, alcohol and death; nor does he need to remember that the woman on the end of the line is diamond-hard but soap-bubble brittle. There's a difficult line to walk here, but a combination of innuendo and irritation should warm her up nicely.

"A picture? I'll send you a picture of the endless woods if you like."

"How about a picture of your endless legs?" He expects, and gets, an infuriated splutter.

"I am not sending you pictures of my legs. Or any other body parts."

"Aw, you're no fun. I'll send you some back," Castle says insinuatingly. There's a choking noise. "It would warm you up. You'd be hot just looking at them." That noise sounded like Beckett exploding. "No?"

"No!" But there's warmth in her voice again; admittedly overlain with a thick layer of annoyance. Castle smiles to himself, and keeps pushing.

"Are you sure?" There's a growl. "Oh, okay then," he says with faux-disappointment. "I'll send you a headshot instead. You can keep it under your pillow. Kiss it goodnight."

"Why on earth would I do that?"

"I'm not there, so obviously you're missing my rugged good looks." He thinks that was a snort of disgust.

Beckett is falling into the familiar precinct pattern of snarkiness and banter, the edge of innuendo, backed up by the knowledge of the heat that blazed between them and the explosive desire. Simply talking to Castle is soothing, the normality of his attitude providing some distance from her grief and guilt. His smooth, deep tones are comforting, and at this remove there's no chance of the physical need taking over, which is just as well. The last thing she needs is more guilt. The last thing she needs is to start down the same path she'd headed down at nineteen, looking for oblivion in meaningless encounters.

_This isn't the same_, a little voice whispers in her ear. _This isn't meaningless_. She doesn't notice it.

"If I wanted good looks I'd call Tom Cruise."

"No you wouldn't." He sounds totally confident of that. It's deeply annoying that he's right. She'd not call Tom Cruise, (even if she knew how) she'd call – oh. She'd rather have Castle's looks than any Hollywood gloss. Still, she's not letting that piece of arrogance pass.

"Why not? He's good looking."

"Too short. You'd tower over him in those heels you wear." There's a tiny hitch in the flow. "What do you have on your feet right now, Beckett?"

"Toes," she says, looking at them wiggle.

"That's why you're cold. You haven't got any socks on. It's a well-known fact that bare feet are a reason for being cold. You should put some socks on. Or fluffy slippers."

"I don't have fluffy slippers."

"Everyone should have fluffy slippers."

"Don't you dare."

"Dare what," Castle says innocently. She's sure he's plotting.

"Produce fluffy slippers. Or silly socks." Another disappointed noise.

"If you put some socks on now I won't be tempted." She can _see_ his wicked grin. "At least, not tempted to send you slippers or socks. I might be tempted to send you" –

"Speak another word and I will" –

"Chocolate."

"Oh," she says weakly. He's done it _again_. She needs to stop falling for this trick. There is a considerable aura of smug satisfaction radiating from the phone.

"Were you expecting something else? You can tell me, Beckett. I won't betray your secrets. What would you like? Food parcels? Space heaters? I know – a colouring book!" She's almost laughing, cheered by Castle's patent brand of complete ridiculousness. "Would you like a Disney or a Dreamworks one? And you'll need coloured pens – sparkly ones. Where shall I post them to?"

"I don't need a colouring book, or pens. But thank you for the thought." She realises that she's been on the phone to Castle for far too long, taking up his time because she was cold. She's less cold now. "I'd better go. I've taken enough of your time. Thanks, Castle. See you."

"You can take up my time any time, Beckett." But she's gone on the tap of the last _t_ on his teeth.

That was very strange. She called. She actually called. But she barely said a single thing to tell him anything about why: only that she was cold. But _she called_. Not Lanie, not another friend: she called him. She needed him, and she actually called. He's unreasonably happy about that. He just wishes he didn't have the nagging feeling that she had needed something more; but that she isn't admitting it to herself.

The next day she doesn't call. Nor the next. Nor the one after that. He tries very hard not to worry and not to check his phone in case he's missed a call. It's disgracefully teenage. She said she needed space, and he can give her it. He really can. He is an adult, and this is not high school.

But late on the fourth evening she calls again.

* * *

Beckett swipes the phone off, feeling much better – and warmer – and even manages, buoyed up on the comfort of Castle's innuendo-laden, undemanding insanity, to make herself a proper dinner, and eat a proper amount. She sleeps better, too, though she achieves this mainly by remembering in some considerable detail exactly how Castle's hard body felt against hers, in more contexts than merely the warmth provided the previous night. Whatever works, she justifies it to herself. She has to eat properly, and sleep, and if this works to help her sleep better she'll use it. Just for tonight.

She is marginally horrified to wake wrapped around a fat pillow, cuddling close it to her, though that's mainly because she'd been dreaming that she was cuddling a considerably less fat and more muscular entity. She refuses to allow herself to be disappointed. She's up here for peace, and solitude, and to pull herself together.

That morning she wanders through the cabin, forcing herself to remember the happy times: her mother making apple pie, and she "helping"; (mainly snitching ends of pastry till her mom tapped her sneaky fingers with a wooden spoon) her father occasionally whittling her small whistles (he couldn't make anything else, but the whistles were fun). She opens the drawer in her room where she used to keep them and finds one still lurking, dustily, at the back, half-hidden.

The edges of the world blur a little as she takes it out and looks at it, rough-hewn, but the mouthpiece carefully sanded so that a small Katie wouldn't get splinters in her lips. She puts it to her mouth and gives a tentative toot. It still works. She takes it outside and blows it a little harder, the deep note sounding clearly. She sits on the porch and stares blindly at it, lost in the memory of a happier time: her Dad with the knife, and later, she herself allowed to try, carefully. (_Fingers don't grow back, Katie._) He had cut deeply (_Bass whistles are the best, bug_.) to get a deep note. She sniffles, fingering the wood. But it's a better memory than bourbon and blood.

She passes through the day, takes a walk through the woods, remembers being swung between her parents, chopping the heads off innocent plants with sticks, and later, older, fishing with her father. Better memories. She makes herself another proper dinner, and resolutely does not pick up her phone, goes to bed, and repeats the pattern the next day, and the next. Her sleep becomes less and less restful, but she has to get past this. Her memories are improving. It's working, and it's only because her head is full of the mixture of memories that she's not sleeping well. Once she's done here, she'll sleep just as well as ever.

She won't be the weepy, clinging vine she'd been becoming. She'll be back to normal: all sorted out and not in need of support. She can do this for herself, and when she's done she might be able to think about bringing her life into some sort of normal balance that involves friends and sociability and …and who is she kidding. That's all so much crap. She couldn't save her dad, but she'll solve her mother's murder. Look a little harder, dig a little deeper, work a little more intensely. She'll have more headspace, too, when she doesn't have to worry about her dad. She'll make one thing right, and maybe that will cure the guilt over her father's death.

Even with that, though, she could still have more of a life. She could do both. Her mother had always encouraged her to go out, to do things. She'd just never understood why her Katie hadn't wanted to, and her Katie had never told her why. How do you tell even the most loving mother that the whole school thinks you put out at prom? She hadn't wanted to go about with people who could think like that.

This is not helping. _What your mother had or hadn't known isn't the issue here, Kate_. The issue is that her mother would have wanted her to have some life. Okay, so looking after her father came first – and her mother would surely have appreciated that – but burying herself in a long-cold case would not have impressed her mother at all. Work ethic, yes, workaholic, no.

She makes herself coffee, and ponders. Her life's been in the toilet for ten years, and she's not sure how to retrieve it. She circles round her past. She'd just been getting over the hell that high school had been, changing her life when she got to college, for the first time in her life popular, pretty _and_ obviously intelligent – when it all went horribly wrong again, one dank January night. So she'd shifted her life to fit the new reality, and kept her hopes low. Why indulge in hopes, when every time things had seemed to be improving they were dashed again?

It's come full circle, in a distorted kind of way. High school hell had been alleviated, extremely temporarily, by Rick Rodgers. The ten years of mainly solitude, short relationships, except for Will – six months was the longest she'd managed by some distance – and losing herself in work had been interrupted by that same Rick Rodgers, now Rick Castle, megastar author. In both cases, she hadn't wanted to know. In both cases, he'd shoved his way in. In both cases, something else had intervened – his so-called friends, the first time; her father and her walls, this time. And in both cases, his presence had actually helped, not hindered. The first time's disaster was not his fault. She's sure of that, now.

But she can't expect someone else to pull her life together for her. She's not that pathetic teen, insecure and bullied, who needed someone to solve her problem for her. She's a mature, confident woman who can take care of herself. She just needs to pull herself together, and then she _will_ try to get some sort of a life.

Right. Decision made. She'll sort herself out and then she'll do something about getting a life, from a position of strength. It's all improving, anyway: she's not sniffling every time she looks at a picture, or picks up a whistle, and soon she'll be sleeping as well as ever. (She ignores that her definition of sleeping well is only waking twice a night.) By the time she's home it'll be fine.

* * *

But the next day it all falls apart. She'd gone into town to stock up – more coffee, ingredients that might be turned into edible meals – and the storekeeper had, unfortunately, remembered her name when she handed over her card to pay. He certainly hadn't recognised her, as he had made perfectly clear in a series of tactless but well-meaning remarks about how much she'd changed. He'd intended to be complimentary. Even more unfortunately, he hadn't seen either of her parents for twelve years, and had inquired about them. She'd managed to stay reasonably calm as she'd explained that they had both passed; preserved a tearless face as he'd expressed sympathy and shared a few memories of his own – and then come home to cry hopelessly into her pillows. She'd really thought that it was getting better, and then one elderly shopkeeper who used to know her parents and had shared a few banal reminisces has overset her all over again.

She falls into a soggy sleep, worn out by re-asserted grief, and wakes in mid-afternoon, still weighed down. She can't be bothered to have lunch, can't concentrate to read anything complex, goes for a walk, but doesn't enjoy it. She's bitterly glad there's no alcohol, because she would be very tempted to open the bottle and keep going. She can't do that. She stopped herself travelling down that road once before: the booze and the boys. Drowned herself in work, after she'd sorted herself out.

But she doesn't make dinner, lost in another round of bad memories of her father's death, another pool of tears, and then the memory of the crime scene photos of a grimy, dark back alley into which her father's final drunken, dirty state would have fitted more aptly than her mother's smartly dressed professionalism, and when she's hauled herself out of that swamp of muddy misery she's not hungry.

She's cold, again. She needs warmth. She wants… she wants… she wants the one person who's kept her warm. Suddenly she doesn't care that she's doing exactly what she wasn't going to. Castle doesn't care whether she's strong or not. He'll talk to her, and it'll be better. She just needs him to spill out his words in that warm, soothing voice and she'll be better. It's just for tonight.

* * *

_Thank you all. I really appreciate your reviews and the time you take to tell me them. All logged in comments are answered, and I'm happy to discuss your thoughts._


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter 30: I'm calling you**

"Castle?" He knows it's Beckett asking: he'd sneaked a photo and attached it to her number. But it's after eleven, and Beckett, he knows, is an early bird. He concludes, rather too rapidly for his peace of mind, that she isn't sleeping well.

"It's me, Castle." Uh-oh. That tone doesn't sound good. "Talk to me," she spills out. "Anything. Please. Just talk." Huh? Talk? She spends all her time telling him to shut up, usually with promises of violence if he doesn't. And now she wants him to talk?

"Okay," he agrees, frantically scrabbling for any topic that won't trigger the imminent shattering of her thread-thin composure. What's gone wrong? "Shall I tell you about my mother's latest effort at finding success?" Silence. He keeps talking, burbling brainlessly till his intelligence can catch up with his words. "She's been auditioning for a new part. Some two-bit theatre that's so far off-Broadway it's in Ohio. It's… alternative. Very alternative. It's decided to import a British concept. Pantomime. God knows why. It sounds terrible: girls playing boys and men in drag playing ugly women and jokes so old they were told by Neanderthals – in fact not even Neanderthals, probably by chimps. And" – he pauses, portentously – "_audience participation_!"

"Huh?" Okay, he's caught her interest. Well, she hasn't put the phone down. Interest might be overstating the case a little. Or a lot.

"The audience is expected to get involved. Sing. Shout. Be insulted by the actors. Boo the villain, cheer the hero. That sort of thing. Apparently yelling _He's behind you_ counts as intelligent discourse."

"What, like at the _late night, double feature, picture show_?" What? He's just fallen head over heels. (as if he wasn't already head over heels) She can reference cult B-movies?

"You've seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show?" He's instantly distracted from his mother's latest bad idea. "Did you dress up?" A picture of Beckett as Janet, in the latter part of the show, appears at the front of his mind and does nothing for his brain function at all. "Tell me you dressed up."

"Maybe." There's a note in her voice… and this is working. He's got no idea why, nor what she wants, nor what's gone wrong – but this is working. Okay. He knows how to play this game. _Ready for some distraction, Beckett?_

"C'mon, tell me." He drops his voice into silky smooth tones, more than slightly seductive. "Bet you dressed up as Janet Weiss."

"Nope. She's boring."

"Columbia. Sparkles and short skirts."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Oh yes. _So_ much.

"It would be interesting. And hot. Can you tap dance?"

"No." There's a suspicious pause, right there.

"Beckett, can you dance?" More suspicious pausing. "You went to dance classes, didn't you? What was it – ballet? Ballroom? Disco?" Ah-ha. Intake of breath, right around ballroom. "It was ballroom. Perfect."

"Huh?"

"Perfect. When you come back to the city we'll go dancing."

"_You_ can dance?" But she hasn't turned him down flat. Yet.

"Of course," Castle says, deeply and insincerely offended. "I grew up around theatre. Of course I can dance. So we should go dancing. Waltz or tango?"

"What?"

"Waltz or tango? You need to choose. Waltz is slow and smooth. Tango is fast and sharp." _Waltz is soft and romantic, Beckett. Tango is scorching hot and overtly sexual. Which way are you going to take this conversation? What do you want tonight? Support, or oblivion?_ He tries to decipher the flavour of her silence.

Deep in the Adirondacks, Beckett is trying to decide what to do. If he were here, she'd …have spent the afternoon weeping like a watering-can all over him, asked him to keep her warm – she's still so cold – and then fallen asleep on him. Just like the last few times. Well, she's not going to do that. She's not going to cry down the phone, and certainly not fall asleep to the sound of his voice. Both are a total waste of battery life.

She wants comfort, or consolation. But she's leaned on him so much. She's so cold, and she needs heat. But she doesn't want to go down the road of meaningless encounters ever again. That way lies disaster. (She'd never let it get even partway there. She'd come to her nineteen year old senses just in time – because she'd seen her father diving headlong into a different addiction, and she was never, ever going to be like that.) But Castle's not meaningless.

She stops hard. _Castle's not meaningless_? Where did that come from? Well, he's her shadow, always there in the precinct; he's not some anonymous one night stand that didn't stay and that she didn't want to stay. She wanted him to stay – she asked him to, and she's sought him out whenever this whole appalling month or so has been too much for her. He even saved her life. And he's the only person around who doesn't seem to care if she isn't her normal hard-assed precinct self. Even Lanie expects her to be – well, no. She's never shown Lanie her own weaknesses, simply been there for Lanie when she needs her. Poured out her anger or frustration, but never the underlying causes: high school, or her father, or anything more than the bare bones about her mother's death. She's only shown those to Castle.

Oh. How did that happen when she wasn't looking? Probably because she was looking at the much bigger problem right in front of her and ignoring Castle sneaking up from behind and insinuating himself back into her life. He'd been a lot more subtle about it this time. Or maybe it's just because she'd needed something and he'd been there. Proximity. But it's _not_ just proximity.

This is all far too confusing and complicated for late at night, and she's been silent for far too long. _Waltz or tango?_ Which does she want, tonight? Too many memories messing with her head. She needs to forget, she needs to sleep without the dreams – not nightmares, but she's been waking with her pillow more than slightly damp. She needs respite. And Castle is not meaningless. Hold to that and dive into the heat, knowing that – hoping that – she can make it mean something, on her return.

"Tango."

That's… surprising. And worrying, if she has the same reaction as she did after she came to him and stayed. Still, he can work on that later, and show her or tell her and make her believe that it's not an imposition, that it's not asking too much – and that he is now perfectly certain that she's far, far closer to him than she's let herself understand. Because she's called him. Soon enough, she'll work it out. He doesn't need to push, because she's pulling herself closer. He smiles darkly into the phone.

"Tango, hmm? You'll need a dark dress, for a dark dance. Black or deep red, I think. Split up one side. But you've got one, haven't you? You must have had it at college, so it still fits now." He's not asking questions, but he gets an answer anyway.

"Red. Crimson. Backless. Not split, cut diagonally."

"I'd better wear black, then. I know you've got black high heels." He pulls the picture of Beckett in dance costume to the front of his mind, which takes no effort at all. "The tango's a game of chase, Beckett. I stalk, you evade, I catch you, you pretend to pull away, but in the end you're mine. Close embrace tango, so that you're never out of my reach once I've caught you: always chest-to-chest; my hand on the bare skin of your back, or holding you as you're bent back, or on your leg as you bring it up round mine; my thigh between yours, pressing where you want it." There's a deep breath on the line. "We'd be so good at it." Another breath. "It's the perfect dance: fast, sharp and hot. However much you evade and pretend, in the end you want to be caught and brought close." He's dropped down into the dark treacly tones that ooze down from her ears over every inch of her. "I'd keep you close, Beckett. In the dance, and afterwards." And another breath.

"You think, Castle?" It's a challenge: the confident strut of the opening of the tango, walking away, sure that she'll be followed.

"I'm certain." And wait…

"How so?"

"Because you want me to keep you warm, and bringing you close to me will" – not would. This is not conditional any more. This is how it _will_ be – "keep you warm." He stops for a beat. "Are you still cold now, Beckett?"

"Mmhm," she hums, just enough of a noise for him to be sure that she isn't yet wholly warm.

"So, Beckett. Our evening of dance, chest to chest and cheek to cheek, is coming to an end. I would hold your wrap for you: swathe you in it and never lose contact with you. I'd escort you home, arm around you. You'd invite me in, wouldn't you?" She hums assent. "You'd say it was for coffee, and we'd both know that that would only be the start." He really hopes he's read her right, because he's about to start down an irrevocable route. "Maybe you'd even try to go and put the kettle on, but I wouldn't let you."

"Wouldn't let me? You couldn't stop me," but the tone of her voice says that this is just a part of the game, of the scenario he's building for her.

"I could, and I would. I would catch your hand and twirl you back into me and press you close and keep you there, wrapped in my arms and not able to move away. You'd be warm, then. You'd look at me and I'd see your eyes dark and your lips a little open and I'd know what you wanted. Tell me what you'd want, Beckett. Tell me what comes next."

She's not entirely a stranger to this game, but she's never been so deeply in the scene before. His voice strokes her like the silks and satins she used to wear beneath her button-downs and dress pants; before she stopped caring; before she stopped having the time to care.

"You'd kiss me." It's right. He's got this right. She's following his lead, just like she will do when they go dancing. They _will_ go dancing, and she will be in his arms in the way she should have been at prom and wasn't. (She'd let him believe she'd bought a crimson dress, and then she'd stood and flayed him in torn, dirty jeans and a t-shirt. Not this time.)

"That's right. I'd kiss you." Seduction slinks across her skin.

"I wouldn't have to bend far to take your mouth, in your heels. I'd taste you and tease you and twist my tongue around yours and all the time I'd be holding you hard against me, my fingers firm against your bare back, not letting you go. Every inch of you would be pressed in. You'd slide your hands round my neck and give in to me." He can see it all. He has to make her see it, too, but he thinks she does, because she knows how to dance the tango, and she wants to dance it with him. "You'd want it."

"Ye-esss," she says slowly.

"You'd open to me. I'd glide my hand down over your back and bring your leg up round my waist and you'd roll into me and then I'd hold you right there." There's a noise that makes him wish he was right there with her. He's not precisely comfortable. He's fairly certain she's not cold any more. "You'd want more, wouldn't you?" There's no way back from this. If she'll walk down this road with him now… there's no way back for either of them. Out of tragedy, redemption.

"Yessss." And that's dragged out with the seductive sibilance of sheer desire. _Mine_. All mine. He hasn't felt this surge of possession since… since fifteen years ago. Even for Kyra, it hadn't quite matched up.

"Where are you now, Beckett?"

"Couch."

"Are you ready for bed?"

"Mhm." Asking _what are you wearing_ is a bad idea. Besides which, he expects she's wearing what she did on Friday: an old, sloppy and very un-erotic tee and soft pyjama shorts.

"Get into bed. I'll keep talking to you." There's a rustle of fabric, and a certain amount of creaking.

"Keep talking," she whispers. "Keep me warm."

"I'd keep kissing you: deep and hard and sure of you, till you were soft and yielding and sure of me." _As you always should have been_. "And then I'd run my hand up over your leg and stroke you till you purred and curved in. Wouldn't you?" There's a soft noise which sounds like a mew. "And then I'd simply pick you up and carry you to bed and _make love_ to you until we were both completely satisfied and then I'd hold you close all night long." _And never, ever, let you go_. "Are you warm, now?"

She is warm. Definitely. Bone-deep warm, his soft, dark voice chasing away the chills and the memories of everything but him: around her and over her and _with_ her; and, much further back, beside her and by her and his arm around her and the fire that he'd lit back then which had never truly gone out.

"Yes. I'm warm again. You've warmed me through." She's sleepy, suddenly; snuggles down with the phone still to her ear, no longer wholly focused. "You always do. Did." She yawns hugely, unaware of what she's just revealed. "Night, Castle."

"Till tomorrow, Beckett." But she's gone, and he doesn't think she heard him. Not that he can promise tomorrow. She has to call him. He'll only keep her close by giving her space. But – he'd always warmed her? When? Those few short months so very long ago when he'd been – been allowed to be? he suddenly wonders – her protection? Or now? More likely, certainly, that she means now. But she's always been precise: pinpoint perfect in her words. (She'd reduced him to rubble with her words. _I'm not going. You can keep your game._)

When she comes back, he'll keep her warm. Every night. She'll never need to be cold, or alone, again. She'll never think of it as a game – it never had been a game – again.

* * *

Beckett wakes, not particularly early, having slept dreamlessly through the night; refreshed and ready to face the day: to work on replacing her memories. And maybe when that's done for the day, she can start to face making something better than the solitary, joyless disaster that her life has mainly been for the last few years, except for those few months with Will. It's just so very hard to get past the guilt that she hadn't saved her father. Every time she tries to think at all, she thinks that maybe she could have done more, done better, done it sooner.

Done it at all.

She makes herself coffee and sits out, wrapped in a fleecy sweatshirt, in the morning sun, which is not yet strong enough to be truly warm. She sips, and sits, and thinks: the fresh breeze clearing the sleep, and the worst of the fog of grief, from her head. It's what she came here to do. Time to do some of it: to consider her life and start to move on.

So. She has no responsibility, now, for anyone except herself. A clean, blank, slate. She can write anything on it. She might have preferred still to have parents, family obligations, responsibilities – but she hasn't. She sniffs, messily, finds a Kleenex, blows her nose and blots her eyes, and lets her mind drift for a while, allowing the grief to wash over and through her. This time, she accepts it, and doesn't try to fight or resist. She's been burying her grief since the evening the cop turned up at their door ten years ago; resisting further since the moment her father died; pretending she's coping by never allowing herself to realise she hasn't accepted any of it. Time to mourn for as long as she needs, here in the peace of their quiet, loving, summer home.

The sun has strengthened, becoming hot on her back, as she's grieved. It's reached late morning, the shadows short, the droplets dried long since. She makes some lunch, fixes a soft drink, reads for a while. She doesn't even try to think, as the slow summer day slips by.

Later, she wanders through the cabin, looking at the rooms, the pictures and furniture that haven't changed since she was last here, years ago. She'll need to decide what to do with the cabin: it's not like she's spent every vacation (what vacation?) in it. She absently opens a cupboard, and finds a box, which proves to contain photos, neatly arranged in albums. The first one is dated _Summer, 1993_. The last summer before she started high school. The last summer when she was – not that she knew it – still a child. The last one is from _Summer, 1998_. The last summer before she went to college. The last summer in which they were a family.

She should never have opened any of them, but she couldn't stop herself. And then she couldn't stop herself looking at all of them. And then she couldn't stop herself crying hopelessly over everything that had gone so very badly wrong, ever since. They all looked so happy, in 1993. She'd won her scholarship and been accelerated and was ready for high school and all the opportunities that growing up would afford her. Even in the vacations in between, though her own face was less than open, everyone was smiling. And then in 1998 they were all celebrating her entry to Stanford, all her intelligence paying off in spades, pride written all over her parents' faces, and she looking forward to a new life three thousand miles away from high school.

Not six months later it was all shattered. Everything she'd hoped and worked for, the dream that had protected her through three years of high school hell, had been put aside without a backward glance. She'd managed to turn off the road to sex and drugs and alcohol just in time. Handbrake turn from the freeway to addiction: just before it was a real issue.

There's nothing in their smiling, happy, loving faces to show why this one family should be broken in an alley one January night. Nothing to show the weakness that had sent her father in and out of rehab, always promising to do better. Nothing to show that for all her success then she's a failure now. No ability to find answers, no ability to rescue her father, no life.

She forgets that she's spent ten years trying to find answers, ten years trying to save her father, and the reason that she has no life is because, after a couple of tries, she's sacrificed it to the ghosts of her parents as they used to be, ten years earlier.

She wants to call Castle. But she can't muster the courage, right now, to speak to someone who had come from nothing and achieved stunning success, when she had had everything and it had all crumbled in her hands. He's got talent and a loving family. All she's got are tears and corpses.

And so she doesn't call; puts the albums away and seals the box and closes the door of the cupboard; sits on the porch till the sun's long gone down and the stars are cold against the black sky.

Tears, and corpses, and guilt. That's her world.

* * *

_Thank you all for your thoughts, and for reading._


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter 31: The same old fears**

Castle doesn't expect Beckett to call that evening, precisely, but he's certainly on the watch – or listen, more accurately – for his phone. While he's giving that a portion of his attention, he's also thinking. He's done more of that in the last two and a half months than in years. He hasn't had to think this carefully about a woman since Kyra walked out on him. It had almost been a relief when he caught Meredith cheating – he should never have married her, but he couldn't let her walk away with his baby. They'd been entirely unsuited, but he'd thought he was in love, and he'd wanted to protect her. Gina – well, Gina needs less protection than a fully-grown tiger, and that was no different then than it is now. That had been sleepwalking into marriage, and then they'd both woken up. They'd parted friends, more or less.

This is a whole different ball game. He's fallen headfirst down the rabbit hole into Wonderland, where nothing is how, or what, it would normally be. Then again, it never had been, with Katie. She'd never reacted the way he'd expected; she'd always been different from all the other girls, or women. She'd be a very different wife, too – _Huh?_ – _wife_? He's only known her for three months. Not even three months. And fifteen years, of course, but none of that counts. It's too new, too big, for that. But deep in his DNA he's sure. She should have been his one and done years ago.

Beckett is calling. That's good. Really good. But she's not talking. That's bad, but maybe not too bad. It's also wholly normal, for Beckett. It's as if the mere act of dialling is more of a demand than she feels she ought to make, and then telling him what's really wrong would be an imposition. _I'm cold_ is hardly informative. Nor is _Talk to me_.

_Time for some deductions, Rick_. He _knows_, right down to the marrow of his bones, that he wants Beckett back. But he couldn't say that she's exactly close. (He never could say that. Not then, and not now.) He thinks she's trying – no, he _knows_ she's trying: even at the lowest moments she's taken the time to say enough to ensure he's not hurt (he winces. She's displayed far more maturity than he has, in those moments) – but she doesn't know how. He wants her closer, but he currently doesn't know how to achieve that either. At least, he doesn't know how without risking everything falling apart. And he doesn't know where she is, of course, which, even if it weren't for the fact that he can't and won't leave Alexis, would stop him being able to bridge this gap in the most literal way.

So, Rick, deduce. _Why_ won't, or can't, she come closer? It's not that she doesn't want him – she clearly does. It's not that she doesn't trust him – she clearly does that, too. But the only times she's asked for anything she's backed right off immediately afterwards. Oh. She trusts him just far enough to show him the _occasional_ weakness. She _doesn't _trust that if she asks for help beyond that he'll still be there. That hurts. That hurts a lot.

It takes him a while to calm down again. Initially her leaving for the cabin, in this new, harsh light, seems like a way to shut him out. But eventually he starts to think more clearly. He'd said it himself, he'd only known her for less than three months. And vice versa. And _she_ had believed for fifteen years that he'd played her, betrayed her, and trashed her to the whole school. When he puts it like _that_, it's astonishing that she'd even believed him when he told her the truth, let alone that she has managed to lean on him at all.

_Grow up, Rick_. This isn't a Disney fairy tale. The original Brothers Grimm versions, perhaps: dark, painful and tragic – and not resolved in two hours of song-filled animation. He only hopes he can achieve the happy ending. _Grow up and use the brain you're supposed to have_. She believed him, when he told the truth about that evening. She managed to accept him round the precinct. She told him about her dad. And through it all, whenever it's all been too much, she's come to him. He's her last resort – or her last hope. There it is, right there. _Last_ resort. When she can't do it for herself any more, when it's all too much for one person to deal with.

Light dawns. She thinks she has to do it for herself, because she always has. Right from the very start. He suddenly surmises that she'd never mentioned the bullying to her parents. She'd just… hidden. Herself, and it. Then he'd stepped in. Tried to step in. And she'd never really believed in him, thanks to his _friends_, who'd fucked it up for him before he had a chance to prove himself. (Once he became a superstar, they all wanted to claim they knew him. Like that would ever happen. One's a gossip journalist. That publication is banned from any PR event he ever does. Childish, but _very_ satisfying.) So that was school. Key learning take-away (he used to read Alexis's grade-school communications and objectives very carefully) from high school – don't trust anyone. Or possibly, don't expect any help from anyone. It comes to much the same thing.

Then she went to college. Stanford. A new start, the other side of the country: a chance to be who she always should have been. Somewhere, she became the physical astonishment that she is. (little, bespectacled, cuddly Katie became tall, whipcord, stunning Beckett. Hell of a change.) He has no idea what Stanford would have been like for her. She's never mentioned it, ever. She'd only really been there less than a year, and then she came home. Sacrificed Stanford for NYU and the Academy, and for (he is sure of this, though again she's never mentioned it) her father. Except her father never got better. _Who was strong for you, Beckett_? _Who told you it wasn't your fault? You told me it wasn't my fault: that alcoholics drink because they want to. But who reassured you that you couldn't save him_?

If no-one was there, and she already had a tendency to minimise and hide her problems – who did Beckett lean on? Because he strongly thinks that the answer is no-one. She'd hidden in study and the library at school – and she hides in work now: he's _seen_ her piling on the hours. She might have had a serious relationship - that Fed whom Ryan had mentioned – but he's not at all sure that she looked for support there, mostly because if she'd been in that sort of relationship that would have been her one-and-done and she'd be Mrs Blond-Fed and totally out of his reach. But she isn't.

Hmmm. He likes this train of thought, and the station he's reached, a lot better. That is, he likes it right up till he realises it's rising midnight and his phone is as silent as it has been all evening. He'd really hoped she would call. He's behaving like some teen girl in 1950, waiting for the phone to ring, and he shouldn't have expected it at all because last night she asked for something, so _obviously_ he isn't going to hear from her for another three days: till she thinks that his tolerance is replenished, or she finds that her reserves have run out.

If you never ask for anything – because you've never received it – how do you know that you can? How do you learn that you needn't always stand alone: that being human means that sometimes you need a little help? How do you learn to ask?

And yet… and yet, she has. Asked, and received – backed off and run away, but then returned. Something's nagging at him, though: a feeling that he's missed the point somewhere, or forgotten something. Whatever it is, it won't come. He stops trying to catch it, and prepares for bed, hoping that it will arrive with the morning.

Lying in bed, he wonders if it wouldn't be better to bite the bullet and – not call, perhaps, but text. That way Beckett can ignore it if she wants to. He picks up his phone, taps and sends before he can think better of it. _Should I keep you warm?_

_Yes_. It's almost instant. He's hit the speed dial before his brain has registered reality.

"Beckett." She's cold. He knows that just from the timbre of her voice, deadened, slightly ragged around the edges, as if it's being smothered by snow, pulled down by icicles.

"It's me. Your friendly neighbourhood warmth provider."

"I…"

"Mmm?" he hums enticingly. _Talk to me. It's late and it's quiet and there's nobody awake in the world but us._

"Did you ever see Les Miserables?" _Huh_? What on earth has a Broadway musical got to do with anything? He'd thought that there might be a chance for another round of warming up by way of telephone teasing, but this is definitely the wrong way to start that.

"Of course. I didn't get a choice. Mother made me. I think she might have auditioned for it – in Missouri."

"Yeah. Well. You remember the police officer – Javert?"

"Yeah." Uh-oh. He's not only seen the musical – actually, several times – he's read the book. In English. French is not his forte, outside of menus. He remembers Javert. Obsessed with the chase, and finally committing suicide because he couldn't cope with the changing world around him, shattering his certainties.

"The stars are just like that. Cold. I'm cold. Do you think he felt guilty that he didn't catch his target?"

Castle is having a very hard time keeping up with Beckett's completely unstructured words and thoughts. "Are you outside, Beckett?"

"Yes," she says, sounding very far away. "It's really dark up here. I hadn't remembered how dark the sky gets, without the city lights, how hard and bright the stars are." She goes back to her point, a slight echo in her voice. "Do you think he felt guilty, Castle?"

If she were only in Manhattan, he'd be in a taxi already, because suddenly he is truly terrified. _This_ is what he had forgotten: _this_ is what was nagging at his mind. Beckett would have done anything to save her father: had been prepared to write off her entire private life to move him in, or pay for full time care; and either way spend her days at the job and her nights monitoring her father. He'd seen it coming, right from the very beginning: she's capable of killing herself trying – she'd never had the chance to try – and then crippling herself with guilt. He'd wondered if that had applied to her mother's case. He doesn't need to wonder any more. She had, he is certain sure, buried herself in that case and suffocated in the guilt of failing to solve it. She still is buried, and she's still suffocating. Now, he's sure that she's drowning in guilt for her father's death too. He clings very hard to the thought that if she hadn't done anything …ill-judged… as a consequence of her mother's death, she won't do it now, following her father's.

"No."

"No?"

"No. He couldn't adapt to circumstances." He's still very, very scared: gripping his phone white-knuckled as if he's gripping her hand; stopping her falling as Javert had fallen.

"But he couldn't catch his criminal. His case defined his life and then he couldn't solve it. Don't you think he felt guilty about that?"

"No, he found Valjean. Twice. He couldn't deal with Valjean forgiving him." There's a silence. "If he'd been able to change" – _please hear me, Beckett, because I'm really frightened by where you might be right now_ – "or adapt, he'd never have taken that route. He didn't feel guilty at all – it was all his pride shattering. He couldn't accept that a criminal could be as valuable a member of society as he was. Nothing to do with guilt at all. Javert didn't believe in redemption."

"I used to think of it like that." There's a long pause, in which wholesale agreement to Castle's hypothesis is not the dominant impression that he receives. Castle becomes aware that Beckett's humming a different tune, in a rather pleasant mezzo. He hasn't quite placed it when she murmurs, "The trees are full of starlight," and then falls silent again. Oh. Eponine. Specifically, _On My Own_.

"My parents took me to see it, on Broadway, the summer after freshman year in high-school." _Please don't go there, Beckett. Please._ "Now it's true. They're gone, and I'm on my own." _Okay, that's worse._ She's drifting again: tired, he thinks, exhausted. It's late. She should sleep: she should be warm. _She should be here._

"Beckett, you wanted me to keep you warm."

"Oh. Yeah. I'm cold."

"Maybe you should go inside, then." _And stop looking into the void_. The longer she stays staring into the dark, the more likely that he won't reach her. "I can hear you shivering."

"You can't hear a shiver, Castle." At least she's paying attention to what he's saying, even if that carried less snark than a kitten.

"But you are, aren't you? You said you were cold. Go inside." It's more of an instruction than he'd intended. She doesn't quibble. He hears a door closing, and breathes a silent sigh of relief. "You'll be warmer now you're inside." He thinks for a swift, intense second. "Why don't you get ready for bed, snuggle down, and then ring me back." He pulls on a pathetic, humorous tone. "I can't sleep. I need someone to talk to." _You need someone to talk to. But you'll never do it if you think I've realised that you need to talk to me._

"You just want to be able to say that we're sharing pillow talk."

"Could be arranged, Beckett." There's a rather reassuring growl – and a remarkable absence of any more overt denial. "Are you going to tell me a story to help me sleep?"

"You've written over twenty books. Can't you find something to help you sleep there?" Castle squawks offendedly.

"My books do not put people to sleep. They're page-turners. All the critics say so. Even the New York Review of Books."

"You bribed them. You had to have. No-one writes that sort of hyperbolic review without bribery."

"Case of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Gonna arrest me for it?"

"Nope. You'd enjoy it too much."

"Well, you've arrested me twice already, so I think that's the defining feature of our relationship. We don't go on dates, you arrest me instead." _No, Castle. The defining feature of our relationship – if that's what we have – is that I dissolve into pathetic tears and fall asleep on you, sometimes punctuated with spectacular and selfish sex. So I have to sort myself out before I see you again._

There's a snort. It's hard to tell if it's laughter or disgust or both.

"You can arrest me as often as you like, Beckett." Another snort. This definitely sounds like disgust.

"Waste of resources. You turn up at the precinct whether we arrest you or not. All we'd have to do is wait." It's very nearly normal, but there's still that hint of far-away echo in her voice.

"Will you tell me a bedtime story, Beckett? Pleeeeeaasse?" Castle whines. _Keep talking, and we'll get through tonight_.

"Stop whining," Beckett snips. "I'll call you back when I'm settled."

Some moments later Castle's phone chirps. "Ah, Beckett, it's you. Have you got a story for me?" There's a short silence, which is starting to become a long silence before she replies.

"I don't know any stories. You're the storyteller. You tell me a story. Tell me a story with a happy ending." Castle thinks frantically, and then grins widely into his darkened bedroom. He's not going to tell her the story he wants to write for her – the story of her. This isn't the time for that, and they're not nearly close enough to the end to give it away. Beckett's never, as an adult – he expects – been around small children, so she won't recognise this. That'll be a good joke.

"A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood. A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good." A second later his mouth falls open.

"Where are you going to, little brown mouse. Come and have lunch in my underground house."

"What the hell? You _recognise _that?"

"If you'd read it five thousand times to a toddler you were minding for pocket money one summer you would too. Oh." She clearly remembers that he actually has a child. "You did, didn't you? Alexis's favourite story?"

"Yep," says Castle ruefully. "It's brilliant, but after demands for the sixth consecutive recitation every night for months I'd cheerfully have fed Alexis to the Gruffalo."

"I always felt it was a pretty good lesson for life."

"What, that even small weak people can be clever?"

"No, that if you lie to everyone around you you'll come through just fine." There's a hard edge of bitterness on that.

"He saved himself, though, and no-one else got hurt. That sounds like a good ending to me." Beckett emits a dispirited hum in response.

"Suppose so."

"Are you warm yet? Because if not I can tell you a story that's definitely for adults."

"Cheap porn, Castle? Thought you were a writer?"

"Only a really good writer can write believable sex. Otherwise you end up in – did you know this, Beckett? – the Literary Bad Sex Awards. Imagine the shame!" He's successfully distracted her again. He can almost hear her suspicious thinking. Uh-oh.

"Castle…?" Bullets rip from her tone.

"Yeah?"

"When you said Nikki Heat was a bit slutty…"

"No. Not like that. Unless you want her to be?" There's an infuriated squawk which – he pulls the phone away from his ear too late to avoid damage – he could likely have heard without the phone. He sniggers very audibly.

"Bet you're warmed up now."

"When I next see you I will shoot you." But then her voice softens. "Yeah, I'm warm now. Thanks, Castle."

"I'm sleepy now. Thanks, Beckett. We should have pillow talk more often."

"Maybe when I'm back," she yawns. "Night." Castle is still staring flabbergasted at the phone when he realises he really ought to swipe it off. Did she really just say what he thought she said? And if she did – and despite Alexis's pre-teen commentary, he is not yet old enough to be deaf – did she mean what he'd like her to mean? Is it faintly possible in this universe that Kate Beckett is suggesting, however indirectly, that they might have a relationship? A proper one, that doesn't only involve comfort, comfort sex and tragedy?

He likes that thought. He likes it very much indeed.

* * *

_Thank you to all readers and reviewers. I can assure you all that I am not sponsored by a tango association._

_A couple of answers to guest reviewers - I'm not American, and I don't actually have it in for Ohio - it's just big enough that I've heard of it, and today it's Missouri in the line of fire!_

_To the guest who thinks the story isn't going anywhere - it is, but grief is not a linear process and this is, fundamentally, about dealing with grief. I accept that this isn't a fast resolution and that it's one step forward, one back. That's deliberate, and (to my mind) in line with the characters in canon._


	32. Chapter 32

**Chapter 32: Learn to go it alone**

Beckett wakes feeling much less pathetically morbid and shakes herself into some sort of grown up sense. Sure, she's sad. Of course she's sad. She's _supposed_ to be sad. But there is no reason at all to talk herself into solitary depression and idiocy. Misery at the loss of her parents will bite her on the ass when she's not expecting it – this is _normal_, Kate – so don't let it get to her like she did yesterday.

She'd resolved to try to move on, and one bad day and a set of photo albums and she'd forgotten all her resolutions. She has to do better than that. She's got to be fixed – she's got to fix herself – and then she can have a life. She can make herself better, and then she'll be able to go forward on level terms. Go forward with Castle, perhaps. Just as soon as she isn't so pathetically needy that he'll be bound to resent her for it. Not at first, but later.

She can start now. She can go fishing, where she and her father used to fish, with his old rod, and remember how it was. Another good memory, to displace the bad. She simply has to work at it, and replace the bad with good. She's got just over a week to do it. Plenty of time.

So that's what she does. Goes fishing, goes hiking down the trails they used to walk, forces herself to eat and go to bed at a reasonable hour and look for pictures and mementoes and memories and relive the good. The one thing she doesn't do is call Castle.

She texts, instead, before she begins. _I'm going to stay off the grid for the next few days: sort things out. Won't be bothering you. See you when I get back? B._ She gets back _You don't bother me. Call anytime. RC_. Then she switches her phone off and concentrates fiercely on replacing her memories. No matter how much she wants to call, she doesn't. She won't, until she can keep herself warm. She needs to reach a place where she won't be leaning on anyone else: where she can spend time with others and save her grief for the times when she's alone.

* * *

On Friday evening, she switches her phone back on. She's looked at every piece of her family's life she can find, cried herself dry, so she thinks. She's squashed all the memories of her father's appalling end under a thick layer of memories of a much earlier time. She's resisted the almost-overwhelming temptation to call Castle, no matter how cold and dark the night has been. She's proved she can stand by herself. She doesn't even consider that burying the recent memories under older ones does not mean that you have dealt with either set. It just means that you've managed to hide it all. She also doesn't understand that by squashing it all down she hasn't addressed any of the guilt she feels. She's simply hidden that too. For the moment, though, she hasn't realised that either.

There are no messages or texts, which is precisely what she expected and hoped for. She thinks with contentment that Castle's given her the space she needed to fix herself, rather than simply shoving himself into every aspect of her life as he had done back in the day, as he had done when she met him again. They can do this better. He won't be pushy, she won't be needy. She's not that girl; he's not that boy.

Time to find some life.

She takes a deep breath, picks up her phone, and taps.

_I'll be back tomorrow. Can I buy you a drink?_

But she doesn't press Send. She saves the message, for now, and has some dinner. She reads a book, and moves her finger over Send at the end of every chapter. She makes ready for bed, snuggles down into the cool covers, and reads some more. Finally, it's long past midnight. She needs to decide. Is she strong enough? Can she do this for herself?

She presses Send.

* * *

Castle received Beckett's text saying she's staying off-grid with a complete lack of surprise. He's more surprised that she'd been in touch than that she's now reverting to type. Lack of surprise doesn't stop him being disappointed, though. He does what he always does when he doesn't like the real world around him, and focuses on his writing. Nikki is progressing very nicely, and almost a week of using his writing as a way of not calling or texting Beckett (or in his more fretful moments, bribing Ryan to tell him where she is by GPS tracking if necessary) has brought him very close to the end of the book. He's already starting to evolve a skeleton for the next.

He knows he has to leave her space. He can't force her to let him in, and if he trespasses on her grief or intrudes on her healing process it would simply be crass and unkind. It doesn't stop him wishing he could, or that she would be in touch herself, because he still thinks that Beckett is simply covering it all up, rather than accepting her pain and starting to deal with it. Still, he'll see her on Monday in the precinct. He's surprised just how much that pleases him. It's not nearly up there with the first time Alexis said "Dada", it's true, but it's certainly a lot better than any time he'd thought about seeing Meredith, or Gina, or pretty much any other woman except maybe Kyra. In fact, even Kyra.

On Saturday morning, in the round of breakfast, Alexis's homework load, (no matter how much he offers to write her a note, she never lets herself off) her music practice (it's quite pleasant to listen to, now) and all the usual matters of a weekend, he checks his phone automatically and is quite delighted to see a text from Beckett. He's even more delighted when he reads it.

_Sure_, he sends back. _Just say when_. He resists bouncing up and down and yelling _Yes!_ to the unimpressed faces of his daughter and mother, though he's fairly certain that the goofy expression he's undoubtedly sporting is causing their duplicate looks of cynical amusement.

He spends the rest of the day in a happy wrapping of good humour and considerable hope that he will be able to indulge in a proper relationship with Beckett. He's not stupid, though. She can't possibly have worked through her grief in any final fashion. Two weeks is no time. She'll still be fragile, and emotional, and liable to random outbursts of anger or unhappiness or both. He's widely read, and while he knows that the so-called five stages of grief aren't actually stages, but simply descriptors of any single moment, without necessarily implying an order of events, he expects that she won't have got beyond anger and unhappiness. Still, he can provide a great deal of support and comfort. She doesn't need to hide it from him, and his shoulders are broad enough to bear her suffering. He looks forward to hearing from her later, with details of where and when their – well, _date_, it's definitely a date – will be.

It never occurs to him that Beckett might not have got past guilt, never mind anger and unhappiness.

* * *

When she pulls over for gas and a sandwich, Beckett flicks on her phone, sees Castle's acceptance with as much relief as pleasure – she hasn't imposed too much, she's managed to stay on the right side – and realises that she'll have to think of somewhere to go. _Not_ her apartment. A nice, safe bar, or a low-key restaurant, where they can have a nice, civilised evening and discuss books, or travel; movies, or theatre. Not that she knows anything recent about the last two, and she hasn't travelled in years. Kiev was a long, long time ago. Oh well. If nothing else, Castle always has a ready flow of conversation. And if that fails, he'll have a ready flow of questions.

She thinks carefully about where to go, mainly because she hasn't really got the faintest idea. She hasn't been in many bars recently, and those she has been to have largely been chosen by Espo, Ryan, or some other cop. On the other hand, there had been that one they'd all gone to, which had had decent white wine – she thinks that now she might be ready to appreciate a glass of wine – been clean and fairly pleasant – she doesn't want something dark and dingy, nor is she looking for close and romantic: she wants somewhere they can just have a pleasant evening and not deal in deep emotional outpourings – and if conversation really fails they can shoot some pool to cover the gaps. What had it been called? She doesn't remember. But she does remember vaguely where it was, and a little gentle Googling soon finds it. There. Perfect. Step one to some sort of life. She texts place and time to Castle, and sets off again.

* * *

A little before seven, showered, changed, fully caffeinated and relaxed, Beckett walks into the bar, looks around with professionally cynical suspicion (thereby proving to everyone with eyes and half a brain that she's law enforcement), fails to spot Castle and retreats to a booth with a small glass of the same white wine she'd had weeks ago. It's still good. She allows to herself that she's just a little relieved that she's enjoying it. It's proof that she's working through this. She's just taking another sip when, precisely on seven, Castle walks through the door.

She's rocked to her roots by the surge that runs through her on seeing him. He's shaved, spruced up, and he looks big, broad, and a strange combination of very dangerous and very comforting at once. He waves, spots her wine and detours to the bar, collecting a bottle of beer before arriving in the booth.

"Hey, you're back from the wild frontier." He examines her, a mischievous and extremely attractive twinkle in his eye. "Where's the Davy Crockett hat?"

"The raccoon just wouldn't stay on my head," Beckett flashes back. "So I got it shipped to your place. It's probably nesting under your bed by now." Castle sniggers and makes an_ okay-you-win _gesture with the beer bottle.

"No Pocahontas outfit?"

"No."

"Shame. I do like a woman who wears leather."

"I ride a motorcycle." His eyes light up.

"That would do nicely," he leers.

"Who says you get to come?" Beckett spots the signs of a truly inappropriate comment arriving on Castle's tongue and elbows him before it can arrive. He splutters, instead.

"No fair, Beckett. You've only just got back and you're assaulting me already. I'll bruise." He looks pathetically at her. "I haven't done anything to upset you" –

"Yet," she says mischievously, and grins –

"and all you do is bully me. It's not fair."

Beckett looks him up and down and then side-to-side for effect. "You're twice my size and _I'm_ bullying _you_?"

"I would never lay hands on a woman." He pauses. "Unless she wanted me to, of course." His salacious smile makes it perfectly clear what he's thinking. Beckett quirks an eyebrow at him, and then has another sip of her wine.

"Where is your cabin, Beckett?"

"Up near Ferris Lake, in the Adirondacks. Very peaceful."

"Sounds it," Castle says, sincerely, and resolves to do a little searching through some unofficial routes. It can't be that hard to find a cabin owned by a Beckett now that she's narrowed down the geographic radius. It's not as if Beckett is a particularly common name. Next time she goes running off there, he'd like to know that he can follow her if he needs to. Such as when she starts scaring the hell out him by referencing suicidal cops from French literature very late at night.

"What's wrong, Castle?" Oh. He must have shivered, inadvertently. A naughty idea to get what he currently wants – Beckett in the crook of his arm – wriggles into his mind. Beckett seems quite surprisingly relaxed and normally sardonic. He'll worry about that later, however. For now, he'll just use it to his advantage.

"I'm cold." He shifts closer, and drops an arm round her shoulders before she can answer. "There."

"What's this?"

"I'm cold, so I need warmed up. I haven't got a hot water bottle so you'll do instead."

"That is the lamest excuse I have ever heard. It's June. You can't be cold."

"Why not? You were."

"I was 250 miles upstate, out in the boondocks, not in the middle of the Manhattan heat sink."

"I can still be cold." His arm closes a little tighter. He isn't prepared for the shock that runs through him when he pulls her against his side. He thought he'd got over that. Obviously not. However, he's got what he wanted. One Beckett, neatly wrapped in. "Now I'm not," he murmurs contentedly.

"I'm not a heater." She's not even properly warm right now. Well, not until a second ago.

"You get me hot."

She walked right into that one. That's pathetic. She'd better up her game in a hurry. She's not going to be permanently playing catch-up while Castle produces endless innuendoes and takes the lead. It's her life. She's going to be in charge of it. Starting by giving him his own back.

"Do I?" she husks seductively. "That's nice to know. If I get people hot all the time I'll hire out as a space heater if I get fed up of being a cop. Should make me quite a good living."

Oh. Castle doesn't like that suggestion one little bit, from the instant tightening of his grip.

"You will _not_," he grits. His brain had nothing to do with that statement, clearly. That had no filter whatsoever. She remembers the way he'd kissed her when he asked her to prom. Still the same possessive instincts? That's… moving far too fast. Even if the possessive note gives her a strangely warm feeling in the bottom of her stomach, he does _not_ get to tell her what to do, or not do.

"Sorry? Are you trying to tell me what to do?" Now _that's_ an interesting look. He gets that look when he's about to try to evade or avoid or downright lie. She saw it over the interrogation table. She saw it every other instant throughout the Tisdale case.

"No?" Really, Castle? She raises an interrogative eyebrow. "Well, um, no. You can be a space heater if you want. But I think it might be really boring. And cold. You're cold all the time." He's babbling, under the pressure of her silence. It's quite satisfying. She drops the glare and has another sip of wine. His grip isn't relaxing, though. She lets conversation stall for a moment and considers that this evening was not a bad idea at all. Something normal. Something that doesn't involve weeping all over Castle and then falling asleep on him, or whining for him to keep her warm. This looks a lot more like a sensible, mature encounter. Pleasant conversation and no feeble maunderings. She just needs to stop replaying that hopelessly possessive tone in her head. She really shouldn't like the way it felt as much as she does.

And because she feels like the strong, competent adult woman she almost always has been (except for the last month or so) she doesn't need to pull out of Castle's arm. She's proved to herself that she doesn't need to lean on him, so she can appreciate his strength from a position of strength of her own. She stays comfortably close, and enjoys the warmth. Not that she's cold. Not right now.

Castle is simultaneously mentally cursing his ill-disciplined mouth and thanking his lucky stars that Beckett didn't go into full interrogation – or worse, flight – mode. It's just that the thought of her snuggling up to some other man had tripped all his instincts. She's _his_. Anyway. She's here, on a date that _she_ suggested, and she's snuggled into _his_ arm. _So try not to spoil it, Rick, because three months ago you'd have killed to get this far._ He has a satisfied glug of beer.

Conversation re-starts with a casual reference to books, and a particular reference to the superiority of Castle's novels over those of – say – Connelly's. From there it progresses happily into a lively discussion – if you're using Beckett's definition – or alternatively a lacerating debate – if you're using Castle's – covering a wide range of mystery literature and then skating off to involve TV series based on mystery books, movies based on mystery books, and finally little known sci-fi series of dubious standard, none of which had been commissioned for a second season. They can't agree about that either. Beckett insists that Nebula Nine is a work of stunning originality and complex, detailed plotting and characterisation, whereas Castle refuses to admit that he's even seen it, though his extensive and detailed commentary on its many flaws belies that. Instead, he claims that something called Firefly has all of the above attributes and a sense of sarcastic humour, which Beckett argues is nonsense, and he only likes it because the lead actor looks a bit like he does.

"Only younger and much more handsome," she says, smirking. Castle harrumphs. Beckett smirks more widely. "That makes you sound like a grumpy old man, Castle."

"I'm not," he squawks, genuinely offended.

"Grumpy, or old? Right now you sound like both to me."

"I'm not old. Calling me old might make me grumpy, though. Or I might have to prove I'm not old. Or grumpy."

"Hmm. How were you intending to do that? Knowledge of current popular music? Down with the kids style and hipness?" She looks at his expensive navy button-down, and shakes her head. "Nah. You'd need a couple of obvious tattoos and some low-rise pants for that. Maybe some bling." She sniggers. She's still sniggering when Castle uses the arm around her to turn her head towards him, tip her chin up and kiss her briefly.

There's a very short hitch in his breathing, while she's still trying to remember why she shouldn't simply act on the electricity short-circuiting between them. Then he leans back down, and kisses her deeply, slowly and with some attention to detail. She's not sniggering now. She seems to have forgotten how. It's entirely unfair of him to do that and kiss all her trademark snark away.

He lifts off and smirks back at her. "Didn't notice you complaining about me being old or grumpy then." He's actually frantically covering his own confusion. He'd meant that to be a single peck on the cheek to tease her. He certainly hadn't intended the second kiss. It had – well, got away from him. It certainly wasn't supposed to encompass the sort of kiss that should be confined to one or other home. He was going to take this slowly, let her lead, let her decide what to do and when. He shouldn't be pushing when he's sure she's not over her father. She can't possibly be.

The one, small, consoling, saving grace here is that Beckett looks as dazed and confused as he must do. She's buried her nose in her wine. He's swigging his beer. Conversation has lapsed. But she's still within the curve of his arm.

"Want another, Beckett?" She looks at her glass, which is empty.

"No, thank you." Just as he's thinking that this is a very early end to an evening, she looks up at him and says, "I'd like a soda, if you want to stay a little longer."

"Sure." He only just manages _not_ to say _of course I do._ He acquires a soda and another beer, and reseats himself, not hesitating to put his arm back round Beckett.

"What's your excuse this time, Castle?"

"I want to."

"Huh." But she doesn't argue. In fact, that might almost have been a small getting-comfortable snuggle.

Eventually these drinks, too, are done. Castle still hasn't let go of Beckett. Beckett is comfortably tucked into his shoulder and not thinking about anything much apart from how good an idea this had been. Still, it's time to go home.

"I should get home," she says, making no move at all to stand up. There's a short gap.

"I'll walk you home." Beckett quirks her overused eyebrows.

"Really?"

"Yeah. It's June." He hums a fragment of tune that Beckett doesn't recognise in a passable baritone.

"What's the song?" she asks, as they vacate the bar and turn southward. Castle blushes slightly.

"Oh, just a random song." He's certainly not going to admit that he's humming Ten cc's Silly Love. Beckett looks thoroughly unconvinced, but before she can start on Interrogation 101 he flags a cab for them. At least that way he can curl her in.

And when they get to hers, he can walk her to her door and kiss her goodnight. Once. Just once.

Honest.

* * *

_Thank you for all the comments. I really do appreciate them._


	33. Chapter 33

**Chapter 33: When you got nothing left to lose**

He's a dreadful liar. He can't even lie to himself convincingly. He's not taking her home in the hope of a single goodnight kiss. He's walking her up to her apartment in the hope of several kisses, and anything else she might like, because she's let him snuggle her in all evening, pretty much, and hasn't argued or even tried to pull away once, just like she isn't objecting or pulling away now.

"Coffee, Castle?" Uh? Her words register on his ears and some time later make it to his stunned brain.

"Yes, please." He has a moment of common sense. "Are you sure? I wouldn't want to impose."

"Wouldn't offer if I wasn't sure." Well, that's true. Beckett never seems to do anything she doesn't want to. Where he's concerned, anyway. She would have done plenty that she didn't want to for her dad. "Besides which, since when have you worried about imposing? Turn up on a case, push your way into helping solve it, weasel your way into the precinct by leaning on the Mayor and my Captain…" But she's smiling evilly at him and her tone doesn't say that she hated any of it. Exactly the opposite, in fact.

"I'm useful. Helpful. If it wasn't for me your incredibly high solve rate wouldn't be" – he clocks her glare, and grins – "nearly as much fun." He smirks. Beckett turns up the intensity on the glare generator. Castle is wholly unscorched by it. She rolls her eyes in resignation and turns away to put the kettle on and find mugs, coffee and French press.

"Go and sit down," she tells him. Castle, much to her relief, complies. She wants a couple of minutes to pull her scattered thoughts together and decide what she might want. Comforting snuggly arms around her are quite high up that list. The question is whether anything more is either on offer or desirable. Desired goes without saying, after the earlier kiss. Desired by both of them. Doesn't make it necessarily sensible, though.

She brings the coffee over and sits down next to Castle, who, without appearing to apply any conscious thought to the action, slings his arm back round her and tugs until she's completely tucked against him.

"Still cold, Castle?" she snarks, trying to reassert her personality.

"Making sure I won't be. Prevention is better than cure, Beckett."

"I'm not a cold cure."

"You could have a ridiculously folksy name as a cold cure. Beckett's Best Bucolic Balm. Kate's Country Cold Curative." He grins. "I like the first. Balm. Mmmm. Conjures up all sorts of soothing images of gentle rubbing and stroking."

If he's going to start down this line of innuendo again, she is not going to be left spluttering for an answer. She waits a psychologically calculated beat till the most opportune moment. "If I wanted a cold cure I'd smooth balm over my chest." It's accompanied by an indicative gesture. He chokes on his mouthful of coffee and splutters and coughs, purple-faced. "Something wrong, Castle?" She pats his back, ungently, and sniggers.

"No, nothing wrong," he wheezes. He drags in a breath and gradually his face turns its normal colour again. Beckett takes a drink of her own coffee with a very satisfied smug smile painted over her face.

"If you needed balm spread over your chest I'd happily oblige," Castle leers. She spits her coffee out in her turn. Castle pats her back a good deal more gently than she had his. In fact, it's about half an iota away from a stroke, not a pat, and it's rapidly becoming a very slow circle over her spine. It feels very, very nice. She curves very slightly into the touch. It turns quite definitively into a slow, sensual circular stroke. Okay. More is on offer. She nibbles her lip thoughtfully.

"I really wish you wouldn't do that, Beckett," Castle says plaintively.

"What?"

"Bite your lip."

"Why?" Well, that was a damn stupid question. She should know better than that.

"Because now I'll have to kiss it better."

And he does. He'd always used to tease her about nibbling her lip, and he'd _also_ always used to use it as an excuse to kiss her, and now here he is kissing her and this is not a public bar where she might have to employ some self-restraint which is undoubtedly why her hands are already round his neck and in his hair and _how_ exactly is she already in his lap? _This _kiss has very little in common with the original peck earlier this evening and bears only a distant familial resemblance to the second. On the other hand, it is clearly twin to the other kisses he's provided in private. Or maybe it's the effect of his kisses which is the twin, sending that searing heat charging down her nerves and concentrating at her core. There isn't the slightest doubt that Castle's regarding her mouth as his private playground, although since she seems to be failing to make any objections of any sort, and indeed is encouraging him by doing the same, this may not be unreasonable.

He's kissing her in a deep, possessive and passionate way that isn't really allowing much room for argument or indeed manoeuvre. One hand has curved itself round her face and is running soft fingertips up and down her cheek. One is curved around her hip and is drawing soft patterns on her waist, over her shirt. She wriggles into a slightly more comfortable alignment and notices without any surprise, though considerable satisfaction, that he's enjoying this rather a lot. On the other hand, he's not speeding matters up. This is not the uncontrolled lust of previous times. This is careful making out: passionate, sure, but not the frantic desperation for each other's body that sent them from kiss to bed in instants. This is slower, more restrained. More sensible. Manageable.

She stops thinking about it and gives herself up to the extremely pleasurable moment, investigating his mouth on her own account and, since there doesn't seem to be any need at all to pull him closer as he's managing that all on his own, sending her hands off to stroke over the muscle of his shoulders. He feels good under her fingers. Nicely firm. She goes back to kissing him, pressed firmly into a wide chest and enveloped in large, warm male. Big, broad and, under that, the impression that he might be very dangerous. Just what she's always liked.

Castle is employing his rarely-used ability to exert self-control to let Beckett set the pace. Left to his own devices, and in different emotional circumstances, he'd be a long way past second base by now. However, he's got no intention of allowing another go-around of spectacular but ultimately self-defeating sex when he has the distinct impression that Beckett is finally coming round to the idea that a relationship is a good plan. It's only taken her three months. It had always taken him ages to talk her round to anything. Not that this is necessarily _talking_. The only connection with talking is the involvement of mouths and tongues.

He invades again and holds her as close as he can. He is not going to start on her buttons. He is not. But he'd better just keep them somewhere he can't reach, because he can feel her arousal through the cotton of her shirt and what must be a very thin bra, and self-control is a very over-rated virtue. But then, disappointingly, she starts to pull her mouth away, and when she opens her eyes they're dark, sleepy and hazy. She tucks her head on to his shoulder and doesn't say anything at all, nuzzling into his neck. He retunes his thoughts, with considerable difficulty, to affection rather than outright lust.

Beckett is considering what to do next. Common sense tells her that ripping Castle's shirt off and shoving him flat on his back for better access is probably a pretty poor idea, mainly because she was hoping to make this into a better, more adult relationship than they've managed so far. (She also has a niggling suspicion, to which she isn't listening, that she's not wholly fixed herself yet.) Castle's size, enticing scent of aftershave, wicked and oh-so-kissable mouth and lightly teasing fingers, plus her own substantial helping of lust and pooling heat, tell her to drag him off to bed and not let him leave till morning. She'd missed the actual physical presence of his solid bulk far more than she'd realised until she'd watched him walk into the bar.

Common sense is not winning the argument.

Common sense loses, a second later, by a country mile.

She licks a wet line up his neck and nips his earlobe to provide it with a full stop. Castle loses all self-control instantly, knots his hand in her hair and ravages her mouth until they're both gasping for breath; hot hands unbuttoning and then his hard palms are moulding and her fingers are scraping and it's all going into overdrive because once they start down this line neither of them is capable of stopping. Again. Any remaining scraps of sense, on either part, have been instantly incinerated in the furnace between them.

When Beckett opens his belt and palms over his hard, hot weight as she does, Castle decides that a couch in a living room is the wrong place to be, seizes her hands to push her into standing and follows her up in one swift movement.

"Bedroom, Beckett." She doesn't hesitate, and she doesn't let go. She leads the way to her bedroom, turns to him and takes his mouth as if she's never going to release him, still standing, pressed full length against his hard body. His pants slide from his hips but she's still mostly dressed and that is simply not to be borne, so he catches her hands once more, removes her pants in one swift movement and follows by pushing her entirely irrelevant shirt from her shoulders, one hand flicking open the clasp of her plain cotton bra and sliding that off too. He doesn't stop to watch it fall, being far more interested in the lithe body now almost wholly exposed to his blazing gaze. Castle sets Beckett at a short distance from him and looks her up and down, not troubling to conceal his scorching desire in the slightest. Well, turnabout's fair play. Beckett's regarding him as if he's the only man she's ever seen, so surely he can do the same for her?

He gently pushes her back till she folds elegantly on to the bed, leans down over her and begins to stroke with smooth, long gestures down the centre of her torso, smiling sharply as her hands bite into his neck, and deliberately stopping just above the elastic of her panties. He traces a finger very lightly over them, and watches her wriggle.

"Like that?" he asks evilly.

Beckett smirks smoothly, removes one set of fingernails from Castle's skin and draws them delicately down the centre of his chest in turn, stopping rather above where she might have. He growls. She flicks down and dances featherweight fingertips across him.

"Like that?" she says, in exactly the same tone he just used. He pushes one thick thigh between her legs and pulls her up against him. She rolls in and presses over his leg. He can feel her damp heat through her panties, and pulls her tighter in. She's not talking now. Her wickedly sliding hands are teasing him, so he retaliates in kind and suddenly the moment of slow appreciation is gone as the heat rises between them: last shreds of clothes disappear, slick skin meets slick skin, fingers and lips and tongues twist and twine and tease and drive each other wild; he's growling and she's gasping and _now Castle yes Beckett here now mine!_ and he's inside her and she's open under him and _ohhhh_ she's gone on a long sigh, and he follows.

He realises that he's squashing her and rolls off to one side, keeping Beckett wrapped up in his arms and definitely not letting her get away. She doesn't seem to be trying to escape: her face is buried in the crook of his neck and he can feel her quietening breaths on his shoulder. Just right. Just here, and just right.

She really hadn't meant for that to happen. But…this time it's different. She wasn't weepy and pathetic and needy and essentially emotionally blackmailing Castle into sleeping with her. This time it was all from a position of mutual respect. Well. Mutual lust, more like. But it was _mutual_. That's the point. Not just taking, but giving too. She can do this better.

She curls in contentedly, perfectly happy. Castle's big hands are keeping the vast majority of her back warm, her front is snuggled against him, her legs are nicely and cosily entangled with his, and she's managed to find a warm spot for her hands, somewhere in his hair. Mmmmm. She falls into a half-doze. She'll clean up in just a little while. She's perfectly, gloriously, completely warm, for the first time in a fortnight. It's all just perfectly fine.

Eventually, however, all good things have to come to an end, which in this case means that Castle needs to go home. That takes a little longer than originally intended. Well, a lot longer. By the time he's showed her what can be done with a little imagination and flexibility in her (slightly too small for the purpose) shower, a quick clean-up has become a lengthy exercise in deferred gratification and the less well-known uses for a loofah and washcloth. The colour in her face has nothing to do with her facial scrub. Nor is it a reflection of the colour of the towels. Though it may have something to do with their texture.

Castle finally swoops on Beckett, picks her up and plops her back on the bed before she's managed to protest at all. She retrieves a sloppy t-shirt from under her pillow and tugs it over her head.

"There," he says, and tucks her in. "All warm and cosy. Can't have you getting cold." He parks himself on the edge of the bed. "See you Monday?"

"Yeah. I'll need tomorrow to straighten things out here." She follows the lead she thinks he's giving, and doesn't say that actually she wouldn't have minded seeing him tomorrow. _No more than he'll want to give, Kate._ Besides which, she will have to organise several things ready for Monday: the realtor, the attorney, the will. Et cetera. She'll need to check over her father's apartment, too, make sure the cleaning service has done it properly.

Castle looks at the swift flow of expression over Beckett's face with some concern, but – reluctantly – decides not to pry. He's gained so much, this is not the time to spoil it by probing. It's merely that he thinks she's hiding something. Again. But she's an adult, and he doesn't have the right to know her mind unless she wants to tell him. Instead, he leans over and kisses her, softly yet searchingly; hugs her close and wishes he could simply take her home with him, or see her tomorrow. But she hasn't asked him to come by tomorrow.

* * *

Beckett is hunched over her desk, wrapped in her softest jumper despite the June sunshine, looking through the endless lists she'd made before the funeral, occasionally extracting a line on to a fresh piece of paper, and scrumpling up the lists with which she's finished to toss them in the wastepaper bin. Finally she has one organised page with everything she can think of written neatly on it: actions, contact name and phone number. It looks like the list she'd use for interviewing witnesses. She stares at it for a while, blowing her nose every so often. It's all so very… final.

She folds it up, puts it in her purse to be acted upon tomorrow, in her lunch break, and repairs to the couch with another cup of scalding coffee to try and warm the marrow-deep chill in her bones. It only partly works.

She makes herself some lunch, and considers the plan for the afternoon. She doesn't like it, but it has to be done. She has to go uptown and check over her father's apartment. Her spare apartment, she supposes, bitterly. Might as well get that over with. She finishes lunch, eschews yet another coffee on the grounds of caffeine overload, and takes herself uptown on the subway. Parking is no better uptown than it ever was, and it's not as if she needs to transport anything. This time. She'll need to think about that too. Unless she lets it, or sells it, furnished. Her mouth twists. She has to start doing this, because if she doesn't start now she might not be able to start at all.

The apartment smells of lemon cleaner and an undertone of bleach with which Beckett is bitterly, painfully familiar. She's smelt a similar reek in other rooms, in other places where people have died, messily. She's most recently smelt it in Columbia-Presbyterian, in a small private room with a small, broken, yellowed man, drowning in his own blood and bourbon. She leans on the wall, blinking rapidly, and breathes until she can't smell the acrid scent any longer. No smell of blood remains to taint this place, no aroma of whiskey. Only lemon cleaner and ammonia bleach, wiping away a life, and a death. He'd formally died in the hospital, but in truth the man he'd been had died in this apartment, ten years earlier, six months after his wife had been killed and he'd moved to this solitary residence and into the waiting arms of Jim Beam.

She realises that tears are puddling in her eyes, and impatiently wipes them away. She has to start this. She examines each room as if she were looking for traces of evidence, and finds it perfect and pristine: polished wood and clean glass; bed made with clean linen; bathroom gleaming. Not a trace of blood remains on the tiles or the porcelain of the fittings.

Not a trace of her father's end remains.

She drops down on the couch, disarranging the neatly placed cushions, and weeps for him. Here, in this place, she can't help but remember how she couldn't stop him. She'd tried so hard. But a viper of guilt bites down. Had she really tried as hard as she could? Had she _really_ done everything she should have? His last, fatal, binge had been triggered by her job. Maybe if she'd never become a cop… maybe if she'd quit to look after him earlier…so many maybes, piling up and pushing her over. She should have done more, tried harder.

_Maybe_, the worming guilt whispers, _maybe if you'd solved your mother's case, caught the killer, then you could have saved him_.

_But you didn't, did you_?

* * *

_Thank you to all readers. Your opinions are much appreciated, especially guests who I can't thank directly._


	34. Chapter 34

**Chapter 34: Carry the pain around**

The afternoon has passed, somehow, some way, the light beginning to turn thicker and more golden, less clear and bright, the shadows starting to pool in the corners of the still apartment. There are no good memories to be found here, only blood and bourbon and pain, but she's done it. When she calls the realtor, she'll ask them to prepare a detailed inventory, or if they don't, to recommend someone who will. Doing it herself is a long stride too far, and she needs to save her mental strength for the things she _must_ do, not waste it on the things she can outsource.

It doesn't cross her mind that this is an avoidance technique, and that, however painful it would be, she should go through the furniture, the pictures, the books, the few knick-knacks. He'd kept almost nothing from their previous life: put it in storage ten years ago – oh God. Storage. She'll need to deal with that. She makes another note on her list. They'll have an inventory, but she'll need to make sure that it's still being paid. Maybe all of this can go into storage, for now. Till she's ready to decide what to do with it. Yes. Storage.

Out of sight, out of mind.

But when she goes home she's more tired than she thinks that she should be, more wrung out. She tries to find relief in frantic, fretful actions: checking her lists, cleaning, tidying her already pristinely neat apartment, folding her laundered towels and bed linen, remaking her bed, dusting. She has almost no unnecessary objects, only a few well-chosen pictures. No photographs. No souvenirs. She likes it this way: no memories, and anyway it's not as if she's here much. She selects a book, a bulky Russian-language tome that requires all her concentration and occasionally a dictionary, and lets the effort that reading it takes subsume all other thoughts. In particular, it prevents her going back to the thought that had intruded on her mind on the subway home, which had been to take the extra few minutes to Canal Street and call on Castle, let his broad shoulders absorb and bear her unhappiness. But that would be needy and selfish, and she's sure that he has better things to do with his daughter on a Sunday afternoon. He probably isn't even in. She'll see him tomorrow, when she's back in business and her ordinary self again. That's a much better idea. A mature, mutual relationship, where she isn't just taking. Far better.

But she's not really hungry, and she's not warm. She nestles into the soft jumper that she hasn't taken off once today, calls for a take-out pizza and eats a slice, drinks enough water to alleviate the floating headache – not quite there, not quite not – behind her left temple, and reads her Russian novel with the same intense focus that she'd apply to a new body. Eventually, she goes to bed, on her cool clean sheets that carry no scent or memory of the previous night, and afford no warmth, tosses and turns and dreams of the cold dark stars and the endless chase of Javert after Valjean, merging into the endless chase after her mother's killer and her father's sobriety: both as long and futile and unsuccessful as Javert's.

* * *

She rises before her alarm has any chance to ring, undertakes her normal morning routine and, satisfied that she is once more Detective Second Grade Kate Beckett, badge number 41319, is ready to roll. Murderers and low-lives, your time is running out. She swings off to work and is happily at the bullpen before the rest of the gang shows up. She wants some time to clear the matters that have undoubtedly arrived there, before the first body drops.

She is not simply astonished, but actually, genuinely disappointed, that her desk is as clear of anything to do as the moment she left over two weeks ago. There is nothing for her to start on. Nothing. It's ridiculous. There must have been some homicides: this is New York, for heaven's sake. There can't possibly be nothing for her to do. She flicks through her extremely scanty e-mail and finds nothing of any interest: merely adverts for dubious drugs of which neither she (nor, an evil little thought whispers, Castle) has any need; several versions of the newest irritating spam which seems to be resumes for engineers, surveyors and similar types of worker emanating from Asia; and absolutely nothing at all she can get her teeth into.

It's exceedingly depressing. She'd start on her list, but no-one that she needs to call would be in at eight a.m. She huffs crossly at her clean desk – not even any dust? Did Ryan give it a wipe over? – and retires to the break room to make a coffee. There doesn't seem much else to do till the boys get here and she can wrench some actions out of them.

She's got to the stage of contemplating polishing her pens (she's already shined up her badge) when Esposito shows up.

"Yo, Beckett."

"Espo. Hasn't there been a single murder since I went upstate?"

Esposito doesn't miss Beckett's careful phrasing. Still, not his fight to have. "Yeah, but nothing Beckett-flavoured. All Jack-shot-Jill-over-Bill." The usual phrase makes Beckett grin. "Closed 'em all." He grins back, evilly. "See, Beckett? We can do it without you." He completely misses the flash of agony in her eyes as he sits down at his own desk.

If they can do it without her, why's she here? Why, a little voice starts to whisper in her ear, doesn't she leave the boys to it, and concentrate on the one case that she's never solved: stick to that, and when it's done, be done? She pushes it away. This is her vocation and her life. She's the best at it. Espo and Ryan might be able to solve the simple stuff without her, but they'd never have been able to deal with Tisdale. Or the politician. Or that sleazy high-school kid. She's still needed. She is.

But her empty, tidy desk doesn't do a thing to silence the hiss of the snake.

"Detective Beckett," comes Montgomery's smooth voice from alongside her.

"Sir." He gestures her into his office, and closes the door.

"I won't ask if you're ready. No point. But, Detective, I want you to start slow." Dammit, Montgomery. She'd been about to ask for overtime shifts, keep herself busy. "I expect you to leave at the end of shift unless I approve the overtime – personally – or you've got a live lead. Of course, if you've got a lead then you'll have Ryan and Espo working on it too." His gaze is command-hard. "Understood, Detective?"

"Yes, sir." She hasn't dropped out of her stiff parade stance since she came in.

"Good. Now you're back, I'll expect to see Castle following you around again. That's not a problem, is it?"

"No, sir." Definitely not a problem. Possibly a solution. In any event, even with Montgomery's restrictions, her work will ensure that she doesn't have time for messy emotional scenes and tears over what might have been if life had been different.

"Thank you, sir."

"Dismissed."

Beckett's stiff form leaves Montgomery's office and leaves Montgomery a short space in which to think. Beckett had not appreciated the restrictions he's placed on her, but he's perfectly well aware that two weeks vacation does not get you through the death of a parent, even one who, he surmises, had been a drunk for years longer than Beckett had admitted. He doesn't need her getting hurt on the job because her mind's a little more distracted than usual. She can just start slowly. Slowly meaning doing her shifts and no more.

Anyway, Castle will be following her around. That should ensure that someone will notice if it's all getting on top of her. But he'll quietly have a little word with Castle, to make sure he's watching. Without telling Beckett, of course. That would just be stupid, and Montgomery is not, he flatters himself, a stupid man.

By the time mid-morning, and Castle, rolls around, Beckett is chewing the desk in frustration at the lack of any case-work to do. She takes herself to the stairwell and starts on her list of people to call, since there's nothing to do to stop her. She's not doing that in the bullpen, though. She doesn't wholly trust her reactions – though she's not admitting that to herself. She doesn't want others overhearing her private business: that's a better reason. She's always passed off her dress quality and shoes as the result of careful saving and bargain hunting, and if the boys have occasionally looked a little sceptical they aren't exactly fashion plates themselves. She really does not need them knowing her finances. It wouldn't help.

As a consequence of Beckett's retreat to the concrete stairwell, when Castle walks in he's a little surprised to see her absent. There can't possibly have been a corpse already – or if there had been she'd have called – and anyway the boys are at their desks with that certain hunched, dismal posture that he already knows means that paperwork is the order of the day. Beckett's desk is free of paperwork, and indeed any other work. He suddenly remembers that before the funeral, Montgomery had told the boys to pick up Beckett's caseload and run with it. Looks like they took that order seriously.

"Ah, Castle." Montgomery has poked his head out of his Captain's den and is summoning him inside.

"Roy."

"Good to see you back, Castle." Montgomery acquires a surreptitious expression of _now-don't-tell-Beckett-this_ and carries on. "I've told Beckett no unauthorised overtime, and if she's chasing a lead I expect Ryan and Espo to be on it too." Okay, thinks Castle, that's likely a hopeless order, but if Montgomery's given it, that's his lookout. "I want you to make sure she's generally okay. If you think she's overdoing it, you tell me."

Great. Now he's been appointed class tattle-tale. That is really not going to do anything for his lifespan or health. His thoughts are clearly written on his face.

"It's not tattling, Castle," Montgomery snaps. He straightens to automatic attention and doesn't realise till after he's done it. "I will not have my Detectives working themselves – any of themselves – into the ground. I'm not having death or injury on my watch. So if you see Beckett overdoing it, you let me know. Understood?"

Castle almost says _Yessir_, but manages to confine his reaction to a sharp nod. This will take some thinking about, and some management. He escapes Montgomery with some relief, and lands himself in his accustomed chair, which has mysteriously become even more uncomfortable with its two-week vacation from his presence. He's just settled himself when Beckett emerges from a direction he doesn't recognise, for an instant looking stressed and unhappy till she pulls on her work expression. She looks tired, again, and her jacket is still round her shoulders, which suggests that she's cold. When she sees him, though, her work expression acquires a hint of pleasure and she smiles.

"Hey, Castle. No bodies, yet. Not even any paperwork."

"All quiet on the Western Front?"

"What a clever _remark_." Castle winces, and waves an appreciative gesture to acknowledge the wordplay. He forgets the breadth of her reading far more often than he should do. She's always read, she always used to read, all the time. "Something like that. I'm bored." She stops that sentence short before she can say anything more revealing, such as _I'm dealing with my father's affairs_. Castle smirks at her.

"You won't be bored now. I'm here." Beckett lifts an eyebrow at his arrogant certainty.

"Really?" Before that can start to degenerate, the boys have gathered round, and Castle backs off. Possibly this is not the place for another discussion on how he might warm Beckett up. He hadn't missed the chopping-off of her sentence, either. The next time she's out of view, he'll just investigate that door she'd arrived from.

So that's what he does. Beckett disappears for a short break, and Castle sidles over to the invitingly uninvestigated door and peeps round. When it turns out to be a utilitarian concrete, civic-whitewashed stairwell, he is first disappointed (a portal to Diagon Alley would have been much more interesting) and then confused. Why would Beckett be in the stairwell? He meanders back to his seat, pondering. Ah. He conjures up the image of Beckett as she had re-entered the bullpen and examines it closely. Jacket round her, shadowed eyes, slightly hunched and trying to make herself unnoticed – and phone in hand. Ah. Phone calls, where she expected that she couldn't be heard. Sorting out her father's affairs. Hmm. Oh well, he can provide warmth and support later.

The day passes. Castle doesn't get to take Beckett for lunch: Ryan and Espo come by her desk just as he's beginning to think that he's hungry and ask her what she wants, and instead of looking at Castle she asks for a sandwich and a soda and an apple. He's left trailing out behind the boys, and she's already moving to that same blank concrete stairwell as he does, phone in hand. When he comes back she's outwardly no different from the way she was when he left, a warm smile to greet him, but there's a shadow behind her eyes.

At end of shift Montgomery peers out of his office, just obviously enough that Beckett knows he's watching. She collects her purse and stands, exuding an irritated demeanour. Obviously she won't be allowed to cheat. Much as she detests those who commit homicide, she'd kill for a murder right now. Something to do, to take her mind off the list of matters through which she's working. She'd made all her calls at lunchtime. She'll need to make a whole new list tonight, as a result, to think about her actions or responsibilities as each situation develops. She clacks to the elevator, at which point she realises that she's being rude and turns back.

"Sorry, Castle. Montgomery told me I had to leave on time until further notice or a new body. I should have said to you." She smiles at him apologetically, and he nods and follows her into the elevator.

"Thought it was a bit odd, you leaving." He looks mischievously hopeful. "You've got free time," he twinkles. "You're not used to that." Beckett glares suspiciously at him. "So I'll need to help you fill it." The glare and eye-roll intensifies.

"I can amuse myself."

"But it's much more fun for me to amuse you. Everything" – his leer is explanation enough – "is more fun with two."

"Really? Some things are definitely better solo." She pulls some game together. He's managed to mislead her far too often. Her turn. "There are some pleasures" – she licks her tongue wetly over the word – "that just can't be duplicated with another person present. Sliding your fingers through the smooth silky moisture, feeling the heat covering your body, the sensation of the vibrations against you…"

Castle has gone purple and appears to be on the verge of congestive heart failure. His fists are clenching in the fabric of his pants. He looks rather constricted. It's perfectly clear to what he thinks she is referring. Beckett takes a few steps out of the elevator and the precinct door, as he prowls after her. She improves the shining hour.

"It's unmatchable. Doing it with another person could never compare." She pauses, checks that they're a safe distance from the precinct (a few yards will do, given the hurrying crowds of the Manhattan rush hour) casts a sultry glance up through her long lashes, and bites her lip quite deliberately. "I love a really hot bubble bath."

Castle fizzes, pops and splutters, completely and very satisfactorily discombobulated. "You… you… you _witch_. You evil-minded" – he clearly runs out of repeatable nouns – "_witch_." Beckett grins very, very nastily and takes a few more steps with a provocative sway of her hips.

"Why, Castle, what on earth did you think I meant?" she asks saccharinely. "Of course I was referring to a bath. What else could it be?" She gazes up through her lashes again, and turns up the seductive look a notch or two.

Castle produces a very creditable glare of his own. That one definitely gets a few points. She likes the growl better though. She smirks triumphantly, and nibbles her lower lip again for good measure. Oh. Maybe that wasn't such a bright idea. She'd thought she was further away than that. Or maybe that Castle had a shorter reach.

"Got you," he says smugly, as he pulls her in. "That was unkind."

"Your mistaken assumptions are not my problem. A good detective doesn't make unsubstantiated assumptions." Castle growls again, lower. The rumble resonates through her.

"Okay," he rasps into her ear, "I'll make some _substantiated_ assumptions, then. I'll _assume_ that you're happy to come back to mine for a glass of wine. Then I'll _assume_ that you will have some dinner with us. And then I'll _assume_ that you will have a coffee."

"And how do you substantiate all these assumptions, Castle?"

"Because you've been cold all day and you want to be warm."

Beckett stares sceptically at him. "Really?" She isn't particularly convinced by that argument. Even if it's true.

"And because you haven't even noticed that I've had my arm around you for the last five minutes."

Wait, _what_? Oh. So he does. Has. Something. He's looking down at her rather more seriously. "You haven't taken your jacket off at all today. So either you forgot to put a shirt on" – she growls on her own account – "okay, not that – though it would be very interesting and I wouldn't mind a bit – or you've been cold." He pauses for effect. "You know, you can get thermal underwear. It's not very sexy, but it's warm."

"I'm not cold. And I don't need thermal underwear." The confidence of her statement is belied by the small shiver as they move into the shadow of a tall building. Castle says nothing, but tucks her in closer, and wraps his arm across her back to rest his hand on her waist, rather than leaving it slung over her shoulder. Much to his satisfaction, Beckett shifts slightly into his arm, where she fits very nicely.

"And finally, we're just about home and you haven't complained. So you must have wanted to come here. So none of my assumptions are wrong. Come and have some wine."

With his arm round her she's not able to go anyplace else. That's her excuse, and she's sticking to it. The fact that she doesn't want to go anyplace else has nothing to do with it. Anyway. Castle asked her. Or didn't ask her, but assumed. That's fine. They'll have a nice social evening and then she'll go home and deal with revising her list.

* * *

_Thank you to all reviewers, guest and logged in. All your thoughts are appreciated._


	35. Chapter 35

**Chapter 35: Not much I'm asking**

Castle installs Beckett on his comfortable couch and produces a glass for each of them containing a very decent light red. Those preliminaries safely negotiated, he excuses himself, bounds upstairs from whence a muffled conversation covering dinner and, clearly, that day's school events, can shortly be heard, and returns to explain that Alexis is doing her homework but will be down for dinner.

Beckett spends the interval casting a closer view around the family room of Castle's loft. On none of the previous occasions when she has been in the main room for any length of time has she been in any state actually to look around. It's comfortably cosy: plump furnishings, wood floors, open staircase; bookshelves dividing it from Castle's study and bedroom; a different space for kitchen and diner, delineated without being separated; big windows letting in the early evening sun. She relaxes into the cushions, curling her feet up under her and cradling her wine, not really knowing, but appreciating, why she's so much more comfortable here.

Shortly Castle comes skittering back down the stairs at neck-breaking speed.

"Right, Beckett," he enthuses. "Dinner. We have lots of things. Come and choose." Choose? Normally the most choosing she does is which take-out menu to select from. She doesn't cook: she never has time. She extricates herself from the clutches of the couch and finds that this merely means that she ends up in the clutches of Castle. Not such a bad outcome, though it doesn't stop her rolling her eyes at him.

He bounces on his toes, and suddenly smiles evilly. "Now, Beckett, this is a fridge. Beckett, meet fridge. Fridge, meet Beckett. Beckett, the main purpose of a fridge is to contain food until it's cooked and eaten. It is not a repository for bacterial sub-cultures and breeding the next Black Death."

"The Black Death was carried by fleas on rats, Castle, not fridges." He waves that piece of unimportant reality away.

"Breeding bacterial mutations that will run rampant through New York killing millions and paving the way for the rise of the Planet of the Apes." The eye-roll is nearly audible.

"That's ridiculous."

"So what's in your fridge?" Castle challenges. A fine line of colour stretches along Beckett's sharp cheekbones.

"Pizza."

"Anything else? You know: milk, eggs, bacon, orange juice, wine? The sorts of things that people keep in fridges?"

"Nah. I'd rather get take-out. Always edible, and always available. It's the most efficient use of my time."

"Come on, Beckett. Real food, not chemicals and preservatives."

"Castle, _everything_ on Earth is made of chemicals." He pouts.

"Bad chemicals." Beckett rolls her eyes at him for the third or fourth or four thousandth time. She'd always been much better at science than he, and it looks like she's about to rub it in. Again. (He'd been better at history. And geography, thanks to all that travelling. English could best be described as a hard-fought draw.) He heads her off at the pass. "We've got pasta, chicken, salad, vegetables – how about stir-fry? I've got egg noodles somewhere in this cupboard."

"Okay. If you're sure you can stand that many chemicals all at once." Castle growls. Further revenge is deferred until Alexis is not likely to arrive at an inconvenient moment. He pulls out peppers, onion, sugar snaps and even a can of water chestnuts, the chicken, and then produces two knives.

"Meat or vegetables, Beckett?"

"What?"

"Which will you chop?"

"Vegetables." Meat is just a little too close to home, right now. Blood and flesh are not what she wants to see between her fingers. A nasty little thought skitters into her mind: how will she deal with the next messy murder? But that's different, she reassures herself, that's not personal. It'll be fine. She chops the vegetables neatly, regularly, and rapidly. Castle is slicing the chicken equally efficiently, and, being finished first, assembles noodles; then wok and oil. Of course, Beckett thinks, Castle would have a wok.

Dinner is delicious. It doesn't stop Beckett's unhappiness rising with every mouthful. Castle's easy interaction and open affection for his daughter reminds her, again, of her own father's detachment from her life. She screens her thoughts and pulls down the blinds behind her eyes and preserves a perfectly pleasant exterior. Doing anything else – such as breaking down – would upset the collective Castles.

Castle hasn't missed Beckett retreating back into herself, but he's certainly not going to open that discussion with Alexis in the room. Totally inappropriate. He'll deal with it over coffee. At which time he might also mention Montgomery's little _intervention_. His only chance of keeping himself intact is to tell Beckett before she guesses – which wouldn't take long. She would know it had been him, immediately. Ugh.

Castle takes the precaution of starting the coffee before tidying up. He doesn't think that Beckett will decamp before coffee – Beckett is never knowingly under-caffeinated – but he doesn't want to take the chance.

"Not going anywhere, Castle," Beckett points out, as if it should be obvious, and with a reasonable quantity of her usual sardonic tone. "You bribed me with coffee. Now deliver."

"It's nearly ready. Go and sit down in my office and I'll bring it."

"Why there? I'm comfy here." He turns huge blue puppy-dog eyes on her.

"It's more comfy there. Quieter." He waggles his eyebrows. "Private."

"You're going to keep on till I move, aren't you?"

"No."

"So if I stay here that's fine?"

"Yes." He smiles happily at her. "Just fine." She grins back.

"Good."

It's followed by a squawk as he scoops her up and deposits her in the study. "What are you _doing_?"

"Getting my own way." He looks so ridiculously smugly triumphant that she can't protest, and anyway by the time she's hauled in enough breath to argue she's already been dropped into a chair and Castle's returning with the coffee. It doesn't stop her humphing at him, which only makes him smile and crinkle deliciously at the eyes.

He has a gulp of coffee. Beckett regards him suspiciously, despite the attractive crinkling. "Why are you so keen on being in here?" He cringes slightly. "Castle," she says ominously, "what is going on?"

"Well, um, when you weren't there this morning…"

"Mm?" It's not a particularly inviting hum.

"Montgomery dragged me into his office." He stops. Beckett's gaze is acquiring an adamantine quality.

"Yes?" That's definitely uninviting.

"He wanted me to keep an eye on you. Make sure you were okay," he blurts out. It falls into unrelenting silence. He squirms.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I don't want…" his ears go pink, and he looks like an embarrassed schoolboy, "…to go behind your back. I'm not your minder." When he forces himself to meet her eyes she's looking very thoughtful. He leaves her to her thoughts, for the moment, and drinks his coffee. One issue at a time. She's not killed him, so that's a bonus.

Beckett supposes she shouldn't be surprised that Montgomery's put a watch on her. She's merely surprised that Castle told her about it: she can't imagine that Montgomery would have expected – or wanted – that. Her Captain is, for want of a better description, a sneaky bastard. But Castle didn't go behind her back, which he might very well have done. Score one for the big guy. She looks at the curls of steam rising from her coffee and considers, flicks a glance at her watch and shivers at the slice of jagged memory. Maybe she'll buy a new one. No reason to wear this one, now.

"Cold _again_, Beckett?"

"Just thinking. I'm fine."

Castle grunts sceptically. "Come here. You're thinking too loud and it's making you cold." He removes her coffee to a more convenient location. Convenient for his purposes, which involve keeping Beckett warm and trying to make sure she's okay. She's not fine at all, and she's not admitting it. This is, as surprises go, on a par with ursine toileting being located in forested areas.

"Not subtle, Castle."

"Not trying to be. C'mere. I'm nice and warm," he wheedles hopefully. Beckett rolls her eyes in disgust but – mirabile dictu! – follows her coffee. With one significant difference. The coffee is on the table. Beckett, however, is on his lap. He arranges her into a more comfortable position – for him: Beckett is all sharp angles and protrusions of bone, and this close (and not blinded by the raging lust which had afflicted both of them on Sunday) it's very obvious that whatever she _had_ been doing in her solitary cabin, eating correctly had not been part of it. But she'd eaten a decent amount of dinner, he reassures himself, so he needn't worry, just as long as he can keep feeding her.

"There," he murmurs, "all nice and warm."

Beckett re-acquires her coffee and tries to find some enthusiasm for leaving in its depths. She needs to go home and get on to the next stage of dealing with the logistics of parental death. Enthusiasm is not her first thought. Nor her twenty-first. Resignation, and a ridiculously silly wish that she needn't go just yet, is at the top of her mind. She starts to stand up, reluctantly.

"Leaving already? What've you got to do tonight?"

"Stuff," Beckett says uninformatively. Castle tuts in her ear. He seems to have stood up too, and is still holding on to her.

"You did 'stuff' half the morning, and all lunchtime. Surely you can have a break from 'stuff' this evening?" The inverted commas around 'stuff' are clearly audible. Beckett bites back an urge to snap. Of course she wants a break from 'stuff'. But it needs to be done, and no-one else is going to do it for her.

"I've got to get it done." Castle hears _over with_, and wonders very privately not _if_ Beckett is fooling herself, but _why_.

"What do you need to do?"

She doesn't answer for a second, but then the words spill over. "Too much. Probate, taxes, disposals, investments, insurance policies, medical insurance co-pay, realtor, accountant, notifications, storage company for the old items, pay the funeral bills, deal with all the other bills on his apartment, look at and deal with any other correspondence. I've got to make all the decisions. I have to speak to the attorney every five minutes because I don't know what I can and can't do without probate and before the taxes are paid, and I'm sure I've missed things but I don't know what I'm missing." She stops, forcibly, and draws back control of her speech. "It's very complicated," she says, flatly, and stands straight. "There's a lot to do."

"I'm sure. But do you have to do it all at once?"

"I need to get it done while I've time. Once a new body drops there won't be any time. The boys don't need me right now." She snaps her lips shut on that. It was more edged than she'd intended, and laying yet more of her fragility on Castle isn't where she needs to be. Castle pats her back consolingly, and just for an instant she leans on him.

"Wouldn't a break for the evening help you think?" he suggests, temptingly. And then he has an idea. "You must have brought your list with you. Do it here, and then have another glass of wine." He grins happily. "Win-win."

"How so?"

"You stay warm and I have an excuse to share a very nice bottle of red that I'm trying to protect from my mother's depredations. I heard her come in, so that's urgent. You'll like it. French. Gigondas. Not too heavy." She looks confused. "Southern Rhone. It's not too far from Avignon. Book tour to Europe," he adds, when she still looks as if she's struggling with the concept of not-Californian. Or possibly she's struggling with the concept of not going home, not leaving for that solitary, clean, _chilly_ apartment a mile away where she'll be cold and shiver and won't let anyone warm her up, and her demons will gnaw at her mind. He hadn't missed the edge on her comment on the boys. He's just not calling her on it. Besides which, there's no way Montgomery will let her go without a fight, and Castle intends to be Montgomery's chief general for it. Actually, no. This is not a war. This is a merger. Even if she doesn't quite know it yet.

Beckett is still in his arms. This is good. He sits them both down again and waits for her to decide what to do.

"I can't. It's" – he rides straight over the expected _not fair_.

"Sure you can. It won't take you long. You'll have an incentive to be efficient."

"What?"

"No wine till you're done." She growls gently.

"It's still not fair."

"If I don't mind, why should you? You can borrow my desk. It's inspiring." She rolls her eyes. "Okay, maybe that's just me." He stands up again and pulls her with him, walks her over to the desk and pushes her very gently down into the chair behind it. "Where'd you leave your purse?"

"By the couch," Beckett says, resignedly. It's clear that Castle is going to keep on down this line till either she concedes, or she gives him a really good reason for wanting to leave. Since she doesn't really have one except for _I don't want to be a feeble wimp crying all over you_, which isn't something she wishes to articulate, she'll concede. Especially as she wants to stay, the wine sounds as if it will be good, and Castle is a lot warmer than her apartment.

Her purse appears rapidly. Right. She can do this. Think of it as a way to prove that you can have a mature, sensible relationship, Kate. She can do this without weeping all down Castle's expensive shirt. It's far too nice to be used as a Kleenex. She managed this morning, and at lunchtime, and she didn't cry at all. She won't cry now.

Castle disappears again, presumably – her detective skills tell her – to the kitchen in search of the wine. She unfolds her list, and stares at it. Then she stares at it some more, and then for longer. There's so much to do, and yet none of it can be done until the instructions she's already given have been executed. It's just too much. She walks out of the study to Castle's en-suite bathroom, locks the door behind her, sits down on the closed toilet lid and cries hopelessly into a towel in which she's buried her face so that he won't hear. Then she drags back control of herself, washes her face carefully, thanks the gods of make-up manufacturers for having made a truly waterproof mascara, flushes the unused toilet, automatically washes her hands and returns.

"I can't do anything more," she says, folds up her list and tucks it back in her purse. She determinedly assumes a hopeful expression. "May I have some wine now?"

Castle had returned some minutes ago, found Beckett missing, realised that teleportation and alien abduction are somewhat unlikely – he's fairly sure that if Beckett could teleport he'd have known about it already because she'd have used it to avoid him for the first month or so after they'd met again, and if any alien tried to abduct Beckett it would be lying, shot dead, on the rug – and concludes that she's in the bathroom. He looks at her list without the slightest compunction or manners or considerations of confidentiality and works out without any effort at all that she can't do anything about any of them. He's no stranger to complex family and financial matters, and he didn't _stay_ rich by being stupid about either.

He opens the wine and pours two, not particularly large, glasses. Then he waits. And waits. And listens extremely carefully, without caring that this is definitely stalkerish. He can't hear anything. Then he hears the water running, the flush, and the water run again. He only needs one look at Beckett to know she was crying. The story is plain. Thought she could do something, finds she can't do anything, guilt creeps up and bites her. The expression on her face is heartbreaking.

Superb acting, though. He knows perfectly well that she's been crying: the mascara may not have run but she'd definitely had eyeliner on fifteen minutes ago and she doesn't now. But she's plastered on an expression of hopefulness and anticipation and asked for the wine as if there were nothing wrong at all. He waggles her glass at her in a _come-and-get-it_ fashion and puts it down on the table next to his own.

"Here it is. It's good. You'll like it."

"I'm sure I'll like it." Castle wiggles his eyebrows at her and opens his mouth. "The wine, Castle. The wine." He looks theatrically disappointed, and then takes instant revenge by catching Beckett's waist on her way towards the wine and tugging her down into his lap. For a second he thinks she'll pull away, but then she settles against him and nestles close.

"I like the wine, Beckett. I like you tucked in like this better, though."

"Cheesy, Castle. Thought you were a writer?"

"I'm lots of things. Wanna find out about some of them?"

"I already know your dirty little secret." Castle looks horrified. "You have pink towels. What sort of man has pink fluffy towels?"

"The kind who's totally confident in his own skin. I'm perfectly happy to have fluffy pink towels." He grins. "But actually I forgot to do the laundry and these were all that was left." The grin acquires a conspiratorial quality. "Don't tell Alexis. They're hers." Beckett manages a small snigger.

"How'll you stop me, Castle? Perfect blackmail material." She sniggers again, and looks at Castle's expression. He's worryingly thoughtful. He should be grinning, still. Instead he's serious. She stretches to retrieve her wine. It is surprisingly good. Score another for the big guy. She sips at the wine and ponders, taking time to squash away her upset at her lack of progress on all the matters. Just like when a case is not popping, she has the urge to do more, for longer, harder, more intently, whipping her along. She shivers, and finds herself wrapped in more closely. Castle, she becomes aware, is not talking either. This is a miracle of Red Sea dividing proportions.

Castle is thinking. Mostly what he is thinking is how to convince Beckett to stay and sleep with him – plus or minus various degrees of intimacy. If she's crying and hiding it from him, she's not right, and so he wants to make it right; he needs her to understand that she doesn't have to be strong all the time with him. She's no burden. A small, naughty part of his mind is thinking that the easiest way to stop her snitching on him to Alexis is to kiss her, and that part is growing by the instant. Besides which, if he kisses her properly she might very well be convinced to stay. It seems a better plan with every passing beat.

And then her phone rings. She scrabbles for it in her pocket, looks at the screen with astonishment, and answers in her brisk, precinct snap. "Beckett." Shortly she cuts the call. "We've got a body, Castle." She's off his knee and moving for the door in short order. So much for kisses. Or sleep, for that matter.

* * *

_Thank you to all readers and reviewers._


	36. Chapter 36

**Chapter 36: I touch no-one and no-one touches me**

The rest of the precinct gang are already at the scene. It's not pretty. Beckett looks at the room, the broken body forced into a wall safe, senses Castle standing behind her, and for the first time since she was a rookie has the acidic burn of vomit in her throat. The missing finger and the pool of blood on the floor is the last straw. She pushes back past Castle before any of the others have noticed her arrival and stands out of sight against the wall, taking deep breaths and trying very hard to maintain composure. She _will not_ throw up at a crime scene. She will _not_. But in her head she can see her father's blood pooling across the floor, not that of this victim. She swallows very hard and goes back in, forcing herself to do the job.

If it weren't for Ryan's sneezing and a very childish game of Jinx, she'd have had to have left again. But Castle's ridiculous teenage jinxing – she got him back, ha! – gives her just enough irritation to get through it. When he breaks his jinx and says he'll buy her a soda, it's exactly as if fifteen years were gone, falling away like the feather drifting out the door. It's enough, for the time she needs to hold on to control. But she is very, very glad to get out the apartment and let the CS techs take over, so that she and the boys can pick up in the morning. Her control is already fragmenting, and she needs solitary time and space in which to reassert it.

"What happened there?" Castle asks, as soon as they're out of earshot.

"Nothing. I'm fine."

"Really." It's not a question at all. "You looked like you were going to throw up. You backed away from the body. You've never done that before. So what's wrong?"

Beckett doesn't answer that, because she doesn't want to think about why she might have reacted so badly. Instead she deflects. "It's time I went home. I need some sleep before we get started tomorrow. Thanks for the dinner, and the wine. See you in the morning."

Castle clamps an arm round her and stops her walking on. "You're avoiding the question. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. I'm _fine_. I'm just tired."

"You're not fine. You're still green and you are not fine at all. You were crying earlier, you were on the edge of vomiting at the crime scene, you're shivering now and" – he has a sudden blinding realisation about the blood puddling wetly on the floor at the scene – "and it's all because of your dad." He's scared that left on her own she'll go back to that horrible contemplation of the dark and her guilt. He can't deal with that. His tone shifts, without any consideration at all of how Beckett is likely to react, to absolute _this-is-how-it-will-be_ determination. "You're coming with me. You're not going home on your own."

"Don't be ridiculous. You can't tell me what to do. You're not my dad" – but that furious statement finishes her off. She doesn't _have_ a dad any more to tell her what she should or shouldn't do. She's only got herself. She rips herself away from Castle and is five fast strides down the street and hailing a cab before the first tear hits her cheek. She's in it and giving the address almost before he can catch up to her, ramming the misery back down before he can see it. She doesn't want Castle holding up her own weakness to her before she's even had a chance to work it out herself. It's too much to bear: she needs to work through it in her own time, not be sucker-punched with the truth.

He only just makes it inside before the cab takes off, and the door is still closing as it does.

"You are not staying on your own tonight."

"Says who?"

"I do."

"You and whose army? I can manage on my own perfectly well. I don't need company."

"I don't care," Castle says unflinchingly. "You scared the hell out me when you were up at your cabin and you're not doing it again."

"_What?_ How did I scare you? There was nothing you needed to be scared about. I wanted to talk to you a couple of times because I was upset and talking to you helped. That's all."

"Right. So spending twenty minutes in the middle of the night talking about whether the most famous suicidal cop in history felt guilty for not solving his case and killed himself because of it when you've just lost your father and you never solved your mother's case is a normal topic for casual conversation? Of course I was fucking scared. I had no _idea_ what you were thinking of. Just like I've got no idea right now."

There is an appalled silence. It lasts all the way to Beckett's door, where Castle simply follows her in. She's not arguing. She's not talking at all. She is, he thinks, in wholesale shock. She takes off her badge and gun with all the conscious thought of an automaton, locks them away, and sits down on her couch. Now she's in clear light, not streetlights, she's as pale as she was immediately after the funeral, shrunken into her clothes, and clearly inhabiting the next universe over. She's certainly not connected to this one.

With some difficulty, Castle stops himself saying anything more. Instead, he searches Beckett's kitchen for coffee, finds what looks like the entire annual production of Costa Rica, and puts the kettle on. He needs some space himself, because he's only one tiny, tiny step from doing something entirely stupid; he's only one ill-disciplined word away from telling Beckett why all this matters so much to him. So he's making coffee, for himself at least as much as for her, and hoping that he can calm himself down by doing so.

He places a steaming cup of coffee in front of Beckett. She pours half of it down her throat without drawing breath, or, apparently, suffering a scald, and gradually some colour returns to her face. Castle sees it with some relief and reckons that he can now sit down close to her. But he still wants some explanations, and he intends to get them.

She hadn't thought of that. She really had not thought that she might have scared Castle, or that he might worry; then or now. _He shouldn't have been scared_, a resentful little voice, fuelled by unacknowledged guilt, nags. _He should have trusted that you're not like that. He didn't need to get in the cab and come back with you._ She'd have been fine without him. She'd have made her own coffee and pulled herself together and had some private space to deal with everything at her _own_ pace, not his, and then she'd have gone to bed and slept just _fine_.

_Yeah, right_, contradicts a nastily truthful little voice. It sounds horribly like Lanie. _Like hell. You'd have sat up for hours and then you'd have hardly slept and then you'd have gone to the precinct regardless of orders._

_That's nothing to worry about_, she argues back._ That's normal._

_Only for you_, Lanie's sharp twang points out._ You're the only one who thinks it's normal. The rest of us have a life._

Her fruitless argument with herself is getting her nowhere and steadily winding up her unacknowledged guilt and anger at worrying Castle, which is mixing into her likewise unacknowledged guilt and anger about her father's death. When that's nicely poisonously brewed, it all adds to her innate response to any trauma at all, which is simply to bury everything as deep as she can manage under layers of work.

Then she realises that her coffee is gone but Castle is not. In fact, he's very emphatically present, and despite his finished coffee he's not taking any steps to go. She doesn't have room for explanations, tonight. She's too tired, and the shock of him shoving the similarity between her father's collapse and the victim's pooling blood right down her throat is too much right now. She just needs time and space and to make it to tomorrow and then she'll be in a better place to talk. She looks full at him.

"I wouldn't have," she says bluntly, and stops hard.

She simply does not get it, does she? He'd been terrified, that dark late night. He's still scared by it now, and by her behaviour at the crime scene, and he's hurt that she locked herself in his bathroom and cried on her own rather than letting him make it better. And now she's not helping him calm down again by pretending she can do it all herself when he's sure she can't, and because he's angry and scared and upset he can't simply leave her words lying there and wait for more.

"You did a damn good job of making me think you might," Castle says uncompromisingly.

"You thought I might. Well, you were wrong." Her voice is just as uncompromising as his, and underneath she's furious that he's forcing this discussion now. "So you needn't worry. You said yourself you're not my minder. I'll be fine."

"How was I supposed to know that? You won't talk about what's wrong and you just run off and hide on your own and then you call and talk about fucking suicidal cops and being cold and want me to keep you warm. But you don't tell me anything and worry the hell out of me" – his voice is bitter – "because big bad Beckett never needs to explain anything to anyone." His annoyance spills right over. "You run away and then you call and need something and scare the _fuck_ out of me and then you come back and expect everything to be just the same and don't explain. Just like you used to. You haven't changed at all."

"So that's what you think," she says, as calm and cool and uninformative as a pond on a still day. "I see. Don't worry about me, Castle. I wasn't going to take the easy way out and eat my Glock. I'm sorry for bothering you. I shouldn't have contacted you at all while I was away. I'll see you in the precinct tomorrow."

There's a bitter, ghastly silence.

"Go home, Castle. This was never your problem." Her voice drops away. "I should never have involved you in the first place." He doesn't move.

"What do you mean you should never have involved me?"

"Go home. I can't deal with you too. Please just go home." No matter how hard she tries, her voice is cracking on the words. She won't fall apart with him here. Her neediness is screwing this up anyway: she won't make it worse. If she can just get herself under some sort of control then they've got some chance. If she carries on down this line of asking too much they haven't any chance. He just needs to _go_ and let her sort herself out in peace.

Castle is too hurt and angry to notice the break in her voice.

"Fine. If that's what you want I'll go. If you think you can do this all yourself then go ahead and try." The door slams behind him.

He's halfway home, fast furious strides eating up the mile or so to Broome Street, when he starts to realise what he's done. He's backed her into a corner and shoved reality into her face instead of waiting for her to talk and she's decided he makes her life harder. So she told him to go and he did. He tries to call, but no matter how often he dials, all he gets is voicemail. (He'd rung the bell endlessly, but she'd never come down.)

Back in her silent, still apartment, Beckett has washed the coffee mugs, washed herself, and, wrapped in a robe that should be far too hot for the June night, is doing what she does best: burying herself in work. She doesn't need to be in the precinct to consider the crime and the first steps that she and the boys will need to take, and if she's not in the precinct she's not, technically, disobeying Montgomery. She starts to write, and, when it sounds, ignores her phone. Then she switches it off. The chirping is distracting her, and she needs to concentrate on her work. She doesn't have any ability to talk to anyone right now. Far too late, she falls into bed, far too early, she rises, and starts again. She arrives in the bullpen shortly before the start of shift.

It's fair to say that Montgomery's not impressed to find that Beckett is already on a new case and was out on it – even with Ryan and Esposito there – at midnight on her first day back. But he can't argue with her, because she'd had the call from Dispatch, and he is especially in no position to argue since he himself had forgotten to tell Dispatch not to call her in. He kicks himself, hard. However, it seems that she only showed up a few minutes before shift started, which is within his tolerance for variations in travel time.

Beckett ignores Montgomery's beady eyes on her and concentrates on her murder board. Maps, information and possible timelines appear. Ryan, Esposito and preliminary results also appear. Castle does not appear. This is a considerable relief.

When he finally does show up, she's so deep in the case that it's easy to treat him just like she does Ryan or Espo. Friendly, neutral, and absolutely no hurt or upset at all. She thanks him when he gets her coffee from the break room, treats his suggestions just like she normally would – and makes absolutely sure that she's never alone with him for a second. She manages that right up until the victim's daughter has come in and her interview is over, and even then it's fine until the elevator doors close.

"I tried to ring you last night," Castle opens.

"Oh?" She's not going to have this discussion. He's made himself perfectly clear: calling from the cabin had been one step too far. He'd been fine when she wasn't trying to lean on him: in the bar and at dinner. Okay. She can live with that. She simply won't lean on him. "I must have been asleep."

"I…" He founders on her calm, friendly demeanour, which somehow manages to be wholly off-putting. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I was just worried."

"That's okay. I didn't mean to bother you. I'm sorry too."

But although that sounds sincere, she maintains a deliberate physical separation from him, and it doesn't seem in any way like everything's fixed. At the end of the day she claims to have calls to make, disappears before Montgomery can cast a disapproving glance her way to indicate that her presence should become absence, and later on her phone is constantly busy.

The next day, and the next, are just the same. The boys and Montgomery have picked up a serial offender, who turns out to be a complete washout. Beckett continues with perfectly normal friendliness and not a single jot of anything more. Every time Castle looks at her he can see the shutters in her eyes and behind her expression: nothing revealed except the same casual interactions that she has with the rest of her team. It only changes when Montgomery tells her that they'll have to let their serial offender and best – only – suspect go if his alibi checks out, when sheer frustration replaces it.

He finally finds her in the old range in the precinct basement, firing off shots and in no mood to talk. Even some deliberate winding-up doesn't lighten her mood, though her annoyance is not particularly directed at him, more towards the world at large. Matters improve somewhat when he gets to have a go, and with a little bit of intentional klutziness Beckett has at least touched him. It's just a shame that it's more impersonal than his doctor and involves less interesting areas. She's not wholly impressed with his real ability, either, but since he's not dead yet, and she's agreed to let him take the files home, it's a positive.

"You could come round for dinner and we could look through the files together," he suggests. He needs to find a way to bring back the Beckett who actually talked to him about real issues, however limited that talking was, the Beckett who'd leaned on him when she needed to; because right now he might as well talk to a wall for all the depth of personality she's showing. The wall would certainly show more of what it was feeling.

"Sorry," Beckett says, "I've got things to do." She doesn't offer an alternative. It's all so perfectly polite and friendly that his annoyance is wholly unreasonable. She's not doing anything at all that he can object to: she's treating him just as she does everyone else. But she's shut him out, and shut herself down, and now he not only has no idea what's going on in her head, he has no idea how to mend matters. She's closed her doors on him, hidden everything: she's missing at lunchtime, she's never within reach, she's going home at end of shift claiming things to do and people to see, and her phone has been constantly engaged or unanswered since their fight and despite their mutual apologies.

It occurs to him, as he trudges home with the files, that neither of their apologies actually mended or explained anything at all. Manners without meaning. And, he further realises, he started it. Again. He pushed reality in her face and demanded that she open up. He _knew_ that every time he's pushed she's backed away and closed down. He _knew_ that when he stepped back, she came nearer. And he just couldn't keep his fat mouth shut. He'd been angry and hurt that she wouldn't lean on him and let him help, and he just couldn't keep his mouth shut till she was ready. She'd – oh hell.

She'd smoothed it over last time she thought she'd asked for too much – oh _fuck, _he thinks: she thinks once again that he's upset because she asked for help: oh _fuck_ – and that first time she let him leave perfectly happy that it was all better – except suddenly he thinks it was only he who'd felt better. She'd effectively hidden from him for four of the worst days of her life, and didn't ask for a single thing – and thought she'd asked for too much. Then he'd taken her home – and she wouldn't ask for that either – after the funeral; she wouldn't ask him up, and it was only after hours of silence and undemanding contact that she asked him to stay and hold her until she fell asleep. He'd thought then that he should respect her need for space and privacy, and doing it had _worked_. She'd called. Twice. And then she'd answered his text. But then she'd dropped out again. But, right back at him, _but_ then she'd invited him out. On a _date_. And then come home with him for dinner a day or two later.

And now he's screwed it up. Forced the issue and tried to tell her what to do and then painted her into a corner and told her that he thought she was suicidal. Way to go, Rick. Really great way to go. He _knows_ she doesn't show weakness easily – or at all; he's_ sure_ that he's the only one she had discussed any of this with. So telling her he thought she was weak and she was asking too much of him to support her – and that's how she's taken it – and being angry with her because he was so worried about her state, has just guaranteed that she'll never show him the slightest hint of weakness ever again. Or indeed show him anything except her friendly, uninformative, sardonically humorous precinct face. And she as good as flat out told him that she shouldn't have asked him for anything in the first place and wasn't going to ask him for anything more and she was _sorry that she'd bothered him_.

She won't dislike him, she won't even be angry with him. She won't be anything with him. She'll be just like she is now. Perfectly civil and friendly and happy to work with him and under it all completely and entirely aloof. In a week or so she'll probably even go for a drink with them all – but not with him alone – and shoot pool and pretend that everything's perfectly _fine_. She'll pretend it's all perfectly _fine_ that – she thinks – he's ditched her.

It's not fine. She's not fine. And he doesn't have a clue where to start.

* * *

_And it was all going so well... now you all hate me. They just can't get anything right._

_Thank you to all readers and reviewers, logged in or guest._


	37. Chapter 37

**Chapter 37: Black, my world if she's not there**

Beckett spends the early evening of Tuesday on the phone to various professionals to chase along the management of her father's estate. It doesn't make her any happier. Nothing seems to progress as quickly as she'd like – or indeed quickly; or, indeed, at all. Then she puts her phone on divert to voicemail and starts to work on the papers she's entirely illicitly brought home from the precinct. The harder she works, the less she needs to think, and anyway work makes her feel better. While she's working she doesn't need to feel guilty about her mother's case, because she won't work on a cold case (she winces as the pain stabs through her) while there's a live one; and she doesn't need to feel guilty about her father, because she's blocked that away.

Nothing to be upset about. Nothing at all.

She works late into the night and doesn't think about anything other than the live case, wakes early and goes back to it. She repeats her illicit overtime and defiance of Montgomery's instructions the next day, too. She's not _actually _disobeying. He hasn't told her not to work, just that she's not to be in the precinct or out on the job past shift end. Which is what she's done. She has to work. It's the only thing that's making her life bearable, and it's the only thing that's letting her hide from herself.

So yet again she simply buries her feelings of hurt and guilt and anger under a thick layer of thinking about the case and doesn't deal with any of it. She's perfectly pleasant and friendly to Castle. He doesn't need to worry about her and she won't give him any more reason to think that he should. Her problems are not his to bear, and she won't make them more of his problem than she's already inflicted on him. They've each apologised and everything is friendly, adult and civilised.

But when Castle outshoots her (how'd he manage that?) and then asks her round to look at the files, she refuses. It's best to keep this to a civil work relationship, nothing else. That works well. She's not in a good place for anything else, right now. She'll just keep this to something she can handle, where she's not asking for anything or imposing on his good nature. It's not as if he wants anything more. Besides which, she wants to think about the case in peace and quiet. She must be missing something. They can always discuss it in the bullpen tomorrow.

She's completely forgotten – or no longer believes, following his words – that Castle hadn't cared if she was strong or not. She's forgotten – or no longer believes that he was happy about it – that when she'd really needed support, she'd gone to him and he'd provided it, every time. And she's completely misunderstood why he was worried and upset and angry: because she thinks he couldn't cope with how needy she thinks she'd been; because that's what she understood him to say. So she'll just take time to sort herself out, and when she's fixed, if he's still around then maybe she'll try to do something about him then. Not now. She's too fragile, and it's not fair, and anyway he doesn't want her the way she is now. Then. If, of course, he still wants her at all. Which he probably doesn't. She goes back to her work.

She thinks about the case all evening, through the light dinner that's all she wants, through reviews of all the papers and the photo she'd surreptitiously taken of her murder board and timeline, but late on she still hasn't felt anything pop. She wrinkles her nose and chews her lip. She's about to do something that Montgomery will have her ass for – but only if he finds out. So she'll just make sure he doesn't, by doing it alone. She's going to go over to the crime scene and have another look around.

And if, subconsciously, she's also trying to prove to herself that she can cope with a messy, bloody murder – well, she's not admitting that; still less that she's trying to prove she doesn't need anyone else to prop her up through it.

She stands outside the door and the crime tape and seals for a few moments, telling herself that this is normal; that it's just another part of the job; that she can do this. Gradually the unaccustomed revulsion at the thought of the pooling blood slips away, and she breathes as quietly as she can to focus on the sights and sounds of this block: to understand, internalise and then discard the everyday noise, scents and surroundings in favour of anything that might be out of place.

There is something out of place. She can hear muted voices, someone's tread. It's not Espo or Ryan, neither of whom would bother with quiet. In fact, anyone who feels it necessary to be quiet shouldn't be here – and how did they get in anyway? Their buddy with the bump key is still in Holding – such a shame they hadn't finished processing the paperwork when shift was over – so who the hell is this? Her hand goes to her gun, and as she turns the key in the lock she's already raising it, ready for anything.

_What the actual fuck?_ She's so shocked to find that it's Castle there – and was he talking to himself, which is perfectly plausible since he rarely shuts up on a case, or has he dared to bring someone else on to _her_ crime scene? – that any residual horrible memory and discomfort is flamed off on the instant. What the _fuck_ is he _doing_ here?

"Castle?" His hands are in the air. Good.

"Hey. What's going on?" He looks very, very nervous. So he ought to be. And – which he _also_ ought to be – he looks extremely embarrassed. In fact, he's shifting from foot to foot like a small child caught filching his mom's chocolates. Which Castle probably did, though on reflection actually it was more likely her wine at the after show party, not that he'd ever mentioned anything much about his pre-high school life.

It occurs to her that, pleasant as it is to terrorise him by holding her Glock on him, and however much he deserves to be terrorised for coming to a crime scene without a cop, it's very bad practice to keep pointing a gun at someone she has no (good) reason to shoot. She holsters the gun and Castle's tension level lowers notably.

"Out!" she orders. She escorts him out as if she were escorting him to a cell. Which is really quite tempting, because he's spoilt her plans for coming to the scene and listening to it whisper to her. Or not whisper to her, of course, if nothing pops. But it might whisper to her, which she had thought was definitely worth a go and worth risking the wrath of Montgomery. Whose stool pigeon is standing right in front of her. He'd better not tattle, or she'll reconsider shooting him.

"What are you doing here? Who were you talking to?" It sounds like an interrogation even to her own ears, and she definitely means it to be one. She intends to stay in control of this conversation, because he _cannot_ simply waltz into her crime scene without one of her or her team. Just as well the CSU sweepers had finished yesterday, or he'd have messed up her evidence too. Doesn't he know this yet? It's been months since he arrived, and he really should have learned it by now. She meditates sending him to some CSU tech – who's got into her bad books recently? Sending them Castle would be ample revenge – for a long and detailed lecture on procedure, and parks it for another day. However, she'll deliver her own lecture. He's here to learn how her team do it – and they do it right.

"Er… We wanted to look at the scene." Even more nervous. Good.

"_We_? Who is _we_?" Now she's really annoyed. Castle at least has some knowledge of procedure, which she's knocked through his head. But has he really brought someone else? Her team don't do their job by letting stray civilian consultants contaminate the scene and even bring their friends along to help mess it up.

"Er… I've got a friend." He sounds wholly terrified, now. Even better. If he's too scared to think – which is definitely the aim – then he's also too scared to start any sort of a discussion that _doesn't_ relate to the case. She doesn't want any of that sort of discussion. Besides which, right now she is feeling totally Detective Beckett, and she's going to get all Detective Beckett on Castle's ass.

"I've got friends too. But I don't bring my friends to sealed crime scenes in the middle of the night. What is this, Castle, crime tourism? Not on my cases. You want crime tourism, go take a walking tour. Better still, if you want crime, go walk through Harlem right now. I'll drop you off. I'll even detour to make sure you get the opportunity."

She's still berating him as they arrive at the precinct. He hasn't had a chance to force a single word in. She's said more words in this half hour than she's said in one go in three months – or possibly in total in three months – and he is now absolutely sure that it's so that he can't ask any difficult questions or open a conversation that doesn't involve this case and specifically what he was doing at the scene.

"So who was this _friend_ anyway."

"Powell? He's an ex-jewel thief." And… boom. How to explode a Detective, in one sentence.

"You brought a thief to a crime scene?" He brought a _thief_ to a crime scene? What is he _on_? Acid? Uppers? E? He's off his head. If they weren't already in the bullpen she'd _definitely_ leave him in Harlem. Leave his cold dead corpse, that is.

"It was very helpful."

"It was criminal trespassing."

"To-may-to, to-mah-to." She _will_ shoot him, if he carries on like this. That is not helpful at all. Doesn't he realise that it was wrong?

"Tell your friend to keep up his disappearing act. And the next time you show up at a crime scene without me, I'll show you how my Taser works." Which will be almost as satisfying as her Glock, and won't get her put in prison. Hmm…. Maybe she should try it now.

"Promise?" But not if he's going to enjoy it. At least he's not trying for any deep and meaningful conversations. Maybe she'd misjudged his intentions earlier. "So, why were you there?" he asks.

"Seeing if there's anything I missed," Beckett deadpans. "So?" It might have been damn stupid of him to go there – and take a thief – but she won't pass up a single opportunity to move this case along.

"So?"

"Was there?" Did he find anything? C'mon, Castle. Stop playing dumb. She knows he's got something. He's got that _I-know-something-you-don't-know_ look in his eyes.

"Did Mitchell make bail yet?" And now she's certain he's got something, and he's holding out on her just to be irritating. Well, she's not going to bite.

"Paperwork's not done yet." He might be giving her a very _oh-yeah_ look, but she's seen the flash of relief in his eyes. "I'm holding him out of spite."

"I want to talk to him." Does he now? Well, they can both talk to him.

"Why? We already know he wasn't involved." She wants to know where Castle's going with this, to fit it into her own thinking and spark a new line of enquiry. It'll give her something new to ponder, and keep her occupied with the case.

"Something Powell said. I think Mitchell knows more than he's saying." They all know more than they're saying, Castle. They're criminals. That means they don't talk.

"And what makes you think he'll share it with us?"

"Not us. Just me." What the _hell_? This is not a solo flight, it's a team effort. She is a mature and civilised adult – unlike Castle, who appears to be playing a very childish game of _I'm cleverer than you_ – and therefore she is not going to wallop him around his smirking, stubbled face. It doesn't stop her repeatedly thinking about how satisfying it would be, though it does stop her thinking how satisfying kissing him was. Not that that's going to be happening any time soon.

Her almost improved mood rapidly deteriorates when she realises that Castle's calling Montgomery.

"What are you doing?" she bites.

"Making sure it's okay." And making sure, he thinks, that when they're done Beckett leaves with him. He's already tired of pleasant, civilised, and wholly shut down, even if it's better than being shot. He really, really wants to talk to Beckett. Properly. Preferably where she has to listen and can't keep disappearing, and where he can force her to talk to him in return.

Montgomery shows up not long after. His first act is not, to Castle's severe disappointment, to get Mitchell up from the cell and settle him in Interrogation. In fact, if Castle wants to talk to him, he'll need to go and share the cell. This was not really the plan, even if he does get to wear a wire. Well, a small transmitter.

About that point Castle finds out why Beckett was not at all happy about him calling Montgomery. Montgomery is looking at Beckett with a very displeased attitude indeed, and Beckett is almost squirming under it. She looks almost as embarrassed as he must have done when she caught him at the scene.

"Detective Beckett," Montgomery says coldly. "Did I or did I not inform you that there was to be no overtime unless I approved it personally?"

"You did, sir. But I was following a lead."

"Where are Detectives Ryan and Esposito, then?" Castle jumps in.

"I was there." Montgomery's head snaps round. Castle wilts a little under the glare, but holds the gaze.

"Hmm." It's not entirely certain that Montgomery believes him, but it is the absolute truth. It's just not the whole truth.

"You're not Ryan or Esposito." Castle gives Montgomery a very meaningful look, and coughs. "But I suppose you'll do. You're off the hook, Beckett." _For now_ is not being said, very loudly. "But be very careful about your hours." He turns back to Castle. "So what's this plan of yours?"

Castle explains, and after some fast talking in which he manages not to give the slightest indication that Beckett hadn't been in the room with Powell and him, Montgomery approves the plan.

Much to Beckett's astonishment – and delight – it works. Mitchell sings like a canary as soon as Castle suggests he needs to know everything for his next book – she'd give a fortune to be _out_ of his next book, but clearly different rules apply to low-lives – and next thing she knows Montgomery will be rousting the sketch artist out of bed and handing him the recording and his pencils are whizzing over the paper. Or at least she assumes so. She won't actually know, because Montgomery has ordered her to go home.

Castle follows her out.

"Thought you'd want to see the product of your labour, Castle?"

"Nah. My talent lies with words, not sketches. I'll see it in the morning." He tries for some connection. "Wanna share a cab?"

"Not the same direction, Castle. Thanks, but no point. I'll see you in the morning and we can see what Mitchell thinks of the resemblance." She smiles. "Good one, Castle. Looks like you've broken this open."

The unusual praise doesn't really help. She's determined to hold him at a distance, it seems. However, late at night is not the time to start this. It really, really isn't, and hauling her into him, kissing her into Jell-O and then kissing her some more and taking her home with him is not actually a good plan. Which doesn't stop him thinking that it's a very attractive option, all the lonely way home.

* * *

Beckett is just as shuttered as ever the next day, and it's certainly not helped when she tells the charity organiser who's dealt with the fundraisers that are common to all four victims that she's not with Castle. Even if she does explain afterwards that it's just to make sure that there is no gossip going around. He thinks that the original statement is all too likely to be true. But then he puts his brain in gear and has an idea.

He wanders off at lunchtime – Beckett had already disappeared to her secret, soundproof stairwell, and he assumes she's dealing with her 'stuff', not that she'd tell him – has a very pleasant chat with the organiser, hands her a check which she clearly finds more than pleasant, and returns on a cloud of satisfaction to the precinct. He finds Beckett taking out her frustration on her keyboard and, from the wary looks on the boys' faces, only an inch away from applying her wrath to them. He makes a couple of flippant comments and then waves the golden tickets under her nose. Perfect.

It's even more perfect when he tells her it's a black tie event, reads her reaction precisely, and wanders off again. She doesn't have a dress. Scratch that. She doesn't have a dress, _yet_. Time to visit another friend.

* * *

Oh, oh, _oh_. Oh no. Why did he buy this dress? Why did he give it to Beckett? And most importantly, why are they going to a fundraiser when all he wants to do is take her straight back home and peel it off very, very slowly?

And then he looks at her eyes and the shutters are down and she's treating this like any undercover operation and he's just her work partner. They might look like they're a couple but they're anything but, and it's killing him. He can't resist escorting her with a hand on her back, though, and he is extremely interested to notice that, before she stiffens up, her first movement is to curve into it. Hmmm.

If it hadn't been for the fact that they had taken in a suspect, Castle would have described the fundraiser as an absolute disaster. Beckett may have taken dancing lessons, but just as she was starting to loosen up and be comfortable in his arms rather than dancing with all the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner, Powell had shown up. Then his mother – who is supposed to be on his side, dammit – had auctioned him off, during which Beckett was no help at all – she _laughed_ at him – and then Beckett had taken the dress off and washed up and, although she's always beautiful, sitting with a lowlife in Interrogation, even with Beckett, really wasn't quite how he'd imagined the end of the night. Not that he'd have got a different ending, anyway. The case came first, and if he were honest he wouldn't want it any other way.

But suddenly it's all raids and action and bad guys practically falling on his head and he's stopped him for long enough for the bad guy to get taken down, and for the first time in a few days she's got an expression in her eyes when she looks at him that isn't just blankness. It's not the expression he most wants to see, but it's a depth of friendliness and respect that has been missing since the start of this week.

"Good work, Castle. I'll have to drop you at yours, and then I need to go tell the daughter it's all over." He can't argue with that. If it were he who had been bereaved, then he'd want to know immediately, were there news. And he is absolutely not opening any discussion in the fifteen minutes or so that they'll be sharing a car.

* * *

When his door sounds, mid-morning the next day, the last person he was expecting was Beckett. She hadn't indicated in any way that she was going to drop by. Now's his chance. Because _she's_ come here. He hasn't gone after her. She's come here and now he is going to have a conversation with her. Carefully.

She's holding out his mother's necklace.

"Come in, grab a chair," he says, just about managing not to sound like a cat with the mouse trapped under his paw.

"Oh, no. I just came to return your mom's jewel-"

"You saved my life. The least I can do is make you some eggs." She's staying, however he can achieve it.

"No, really, I – I have to get going..."

* * *

_Thank you to all readers and reviewers. _


	38. Chapter 38

**Chapter 38: Walking away with my heart and my soul**

For once his mother's interference is a blessing. She's involved Beckett in providing a detailed description of the previous evening, ably assisted by Alexis, (maybe he should provide them both with a really good spa day, which would have the added advantage that they wouldn't be here) he's managed to feed them all, and now Beckett is about as relaxed as she has been around him since they first discovered the body in the safe. He refills her coffee cup.

Alexis disappears upstairs briefly and then returns, reminding him that she's going to a friend's shortly and won't be back till dinner. His mother asks a few more questions and then claims an urgent appointment with Castle's platinum card – hang on, what? – removes it with the skill and precision of a pickpocket but considerably less subtlety, and decamps before he's finished his protests. Said protests are rather muted by his realisation that sometime in the next two minutes the only two people in his loft will be Beckett and he.

Unfortunately Beckett appears to have realised that too. There's a very definite speeding up of the rate at which her coffee is disappearing. If he wants to talk – if he wants _her_ to talk – he needs to start.

"Beckett," he opens.

"Mm?" Another slug of coffee disappears at high speed. There is a worrying aura of _Get-me-out-of-here_ developing around her.

"I want to talk to you. Don't go yet."

She knew this was a bad idea. But she wasn't going to have this piece of jewellery hanging around her apartment – she's fairly sure it's real and she doesn't want to be responsible for it. It should be in a bank vault. So she thought if she took it back on a Saturday morning his family would be around and she'd be able to drop it and run, or if not _run_ have a quick cup of coffee and leave.

There shouldn't have been any chance of being left alone with Castle. But all she can see is the dust trail left by the high speed departures of his daughter and mother and a discussion looming that she really doesn't want to have. But then, if she hadn't wanted to see him she didn't need to come by. She could have given it back on Monday at the precinct. Her subconscious clearly has ideas about who needed to make the first move here.

She looks calmly at him. All she needs to do is stay polite, friendly and civilised and not ask him for anything at all. Which is very easy. Really. Even if what she wants to do right now is run. She's just not sure if she wants to run _to_ him or away from him.

"Okay," she says, very normally. "I'm listening." Castle looks at her politely friendly face and quails, recovers his resolve and plants himself next to her.

"I'm sorry." He is. Sorry that he didn't shake some sense into her last Monday. She looks questioningly at him. Said questioning look is clearly and wholly an act. There's a tiny hint of panic behind her bland expression.

"For what? You don't have anything to apologise for. Okay, you shouldn't have broken into my crime scene, and if you take another criminal into my scenes you'll be sharing a cell with them, but it got us the break we needed." She's deliberately choosing a meaning she likes. She knows that he knows it, and that he didn't mean for that to be her interpretation at all.

"Not for that, Beckett." He doesn't conceal the note of exasperation. "For Monday night. I never meant it as you took it. You misunderstood." Her face is already falling into lines of smooth impenetrability.

"You already apologised. I apologised. We're all square. You don't need to say it again. It's fine."

"If it's all so _fine_ how come you won't even talk to me?"

"I've talked to you all week. Well, when I can get a word in. You talk, I occasionally listen if you're making sense. And I put on a dress and went to a fundraiser with you." She forces a grin past the constriction in her throat. "You wouldn't have had half as much fun if it had been Espo in the dress."

Castle grimaces. "Ugh. That's a picture I wish I wasn't seeing." He returns to the main subject. "So everything's fine?"

"Yep. That's why I came over to return the necklace."

"You…" he has to force himself to be blunt, because he's treading a very thin line between mending matters and pushing her too hard – he could push her with a feather and it might be too hard, here on the other side of her father's funeral… "you'll come here if you want anything?"

"Yep. I know that." It's just that _anything_ doesn't, for her, encompass sharing her pain. Not now.

"We're all back to normal?"

"Yep. All friends again." Castle's hand lands over hers.

"Good," he says smoothly, pulls her hard round and kisses her. She's too surprised to argue, and then she's so reassured by being held close that she forgets that she should argue for a moment, until reality reasserts itself.

"What the _hell_?" He doesn't let go.

"If we're all back to normal then we're back to how we were in the bar on Saturday. So I can kiss you. Or you can kiss me." He pauses. "If we're not back to normal you need to tell me why." And back to flirting. "You said that when you were back we'd share pillow talk."

Catch-22. Why does Castle have to be so damn intelligent? She is definitely not talking about what is wrong. He doesn't want to know about her problems so she's not going to tell him. But if she says anything other than there's nothing wrong then she doesn't have a good answer for why she's flipped one-eighty from Saturday, because the only answer she's got is the one she doesn't want to give.

But back to Saturday. Mutual... well, mutual lust. But she wasn't needy or pathetic or weeping all over him or unloading any of her troubles. Yes. Okay. She can do that, _and_ have Castle. Because Castle clearly wants to have her. As long as she's not needy or pathetic or weeping all over him or unloading any of her troubles. Mutually understood and agreed position. She grins at him, and doesn't let a hint of anything else show.

"Back to normal, Castle."

He hugs her in and holds her tightly against him, wrapping her into his frame. In flats, she's neatly tucked against his shoulder, and he can't see her face. He doesn't need to, though, it's all back to normal and he's got his Beckett in his arms and everything is going to be okay again. Better than okay.

"So what shall we do, Beckett?" he smirks. Beckett looks up, an evil grin on her face.

"Well, there is this thing that I almost never get the chance to do..." he looks lustful... "and I'm sure you'll be really, really good at it..." he preens... "my grocery shopping." His face falls ludicrously quickly. She stretches up and pats him on the head. "Something wrong?"

"No," Castle says, altering to looking suspiciously pleased remarkably quickly. "Nothing at all. Let's go do your grocery shopping, Beckett. I'll even carry it all for you."

So that's what they do. It's fair to say that the shopping trip is actually an extended argument. Beckett has a minimal list of long-lived products and dried goods. Her entire visit could be dealt with in the canned goods and pasta aisles, occupying less than ten minutes including the checkout queue. She admits to buying her coffee from a specialist store, though, in which – she does not admit, though it's true – she spends much longer periods. Castle, however, who enjoys cooking and is also good at it, wants to buy all sorts of fresh produce; nutritionally balanced ingredients for interesting and tasty meals requiring a reasonable amount of both time and effort for their preparation; and appropriately selected luxuries, including canned whipped cream. Beckett declines to enquire into his reasoning for the latter.

When Beckett points out that everything he's picked up will be wasted because it'll rot before she has time to cook it and makes him put it all back, he pouts.

"You have nothing in your fridge, Beckett."

"I do."

"Okay, you have the remains of last night's takeout and _maybe_ a bottle of wine." She flushes slightly. "That's not food. How do you survive?" She shrugs. "How will I survive?"

"Huh? What's your survival got to do with my fridge?"

"It's lunchtime. There is no lunch in your fridge, and if I'm carrying all your groceries then you can at least feed me lunch. I fed you breakfast and you didn't even have to carry anything."

So that's why he looked so pleased with himself. He's sneakily using her need to go shopping to invite himself over. That hadn't precisely been her plan. She had rather thought that he'd have another cup of coffee and then want to wander off again. But they're being civilised, and normal; and if they do this then she'll stay away from tears and guilt and the rest of her world that he doesn't want to hear about, while he's here. Tears and guilt and grief are for after he's gone.

"Okay. You can indulge your cookery skills if you want to, though I'd have managed to make something." Castle splutters disbelievingly, and Beckett colours slightly. "Only buy for lunch, though. No point in wasting anything."

Castle reckons that this is the best he'll get and decides to quit while he's ahead. He gathers up sufficient ingredients for an interesting and tasty salad – Beckett needs some vitamins, he is sure, not to mention an extra 500 calories per day until she isn't quite so drawn and full of sharp edges of bone, which are not cuddly at all – and puts up with her paying. Well, _puts up with_ is a little inaccurate. He tried to pay and was corrected as soon as he reached for his wallet. Come to think of it, she's not allowed him to buy her anything except the occasional drink and that red dress. She doesn't like being treated, which is – no. It's not very strange at all, because Beckett never asks for anything and so it follows that she doesn't like accepting anything either. It's amazing that she's kept the dress, in fact.

It's just as well they'd bought something. The fridge is – again – growing industrial quantities of penicillin and nothing else, and when Castle casts a surreptitious glance over Beckett's back when she's turned away he can count each vertebra under her soft t-shirt. He produces a very good meal, but notes without appearing to do so that she's clearly forcing herself to eat. Ah well, now they're back to normal she'll tell him what's wrong – _in her own good time, Rick. Don't push._ And she is eating. He ignores the very tiny niggle that – if he were paying attention – would tell him that she's forcing herself to appear normal by eating more than she might otherwise, if she were alone.

"Coffee, Castle?"

"Yes, please." Beckett tidies up efficiently whilst coffee is brewing, and produces a full pot with accessories in the form of mugs and creamer. She sits down next to him – this is good – and examines his face with a rather quizzical expression.

"What's the problem, Beckett? I know it's very hard not to stare at my rugged good looks, but you usually manage a few seconds' break in each hour." Beckett makes a disgusted face.

"What a sweep of vanity doth come this way!" she jabs.

"Clever and hot," Castle smirks. "Perfect." He gathers her in with an arm around her shoulders.

"Great black eye there. If I didn't know better I'd think you'd been fighting."

"The pen is mightier than the fist, Beckett."

"Sword."

"We don't use swords any more, now we've made it to 2009. I can fence, though," he says smugly. "So, the pen is mightier than the fist."

"Depends whose pen. Shakespeare, sure. Castle… that's disputable." She smirks. "Or disreputable. Take your pick."

Castle is not going to be jabbed at by Beckett like that. It's unfair. "I'm never disreputable. Distinctly desirable, sure. Like this." He leans over and kisses her in a distinctly desirable manner. It rapidly turns into distinctly and definitely possessive. He's missed this. He's missed her. Even if it has only been a few days, he can't stand it when she locks him out. He'd always hated it, and he'd never known how to deal with it. Not this time, though. This time he'll hold her close and never let her believe that he won't be there for her, whatever she needs.

It doesn't occur to him that she won't rely on his explanation, still less that she can't bring herself to believe it, and less than that that she'll simply ignore it. It certainly never occurs to him that she can be in his arms and yet _not_ know how much she means; how much he cares; that he'll give her strength whenever her own, almost limitless, strength finally fails.

He pulls her more closely in and brings her hard against him, sliding deep and slow through her mouth and feeling her response to him in the flex of her hands over his shoulders and the answering swoop of her tongue. His hand wanders over her hip and down to lift her legs up over his lap and the little shiver that trembles over her tells him that she's into this. He nibbles carefully – he won't leave marks: not where anyone could see them – on that tiny spot on her neck that makes her wriggle and squirm and breathe harder, and her head drops out the way and gives him access and her eyes are closed, lashes dark on her pallid skin.

He goes back to her full mouth, persuading her to let him in and then pilfering the almost-inaudible sounds. She's very quiet, in bed, most of the time. Sighs and gasps, but that and the occasional soft noise are about it. Not that she's talkative most of the time. Right now, though, some soft making out, followed by some rather dirtier making out, seems like a plan. He kisses her harder, and runs a firm, assertive stroke over her back and then hip and over the taut muscle of her leg, coming to rest not-quite-indecently high on her thigh.

And then she opens his top three buttons with three fast flicks of her fingers and scrapes her nails over his sternum and soft making out turns straight to hard, dirty hands and passing second base without a pause and she's just as lit up as he is and he's stripped her shirt and pushed her back so it's his arm that's holding her up and he's free to lick and nip and suck through her very unglamorous thin cotton bra. She arches up into him for more and pulls his head down to her breasts when he pauses.

"What's your hurry? We got all afternoon."

Beckett growls at him. He smiles, and undertakes a complicated manoeuvre that leaves her laid out on her couch and he in a position to take full advantage.

"I don't want to hurry," he says.

"There's a difference between not hurrying and not doing anything, Castle."

"Well, if that's the way you want it…" He dips to her throat, and licks a wet, hot line downward. She shivers under his mouth. He's too good at this, but while they're here, like this, doing this, everything is fine. Mutual satisfaction.

It doesn't occur to her that Castle's earlier statements meant more than _if you want pleasant diversion_. Social or sexual. It certainly doesn't occur to her that he means _lean on me, whatever and whenever you need_. Because her definition of back to normal means simply that in return for him making her life easier, she shouldn't make his life harder.

So instead she reaches for his shoulders and pulls him upward to kiss him hard and deep and searching, and to slide his shirt off to expose the bared skin of his torso, pressing into his warmth and content that he's providing her with what she wants, while she's giving him what he wants. Everything back to normal. And if there's a little niggle in the very deepest depths of her mind nagging at her that this isn't what she wants: that she wants the man she could lean on, well, she's not listening to that.

She gives herself up to taking and receiving the slow, hypnotic pleasure of exploration, stroking and sliding and staying above the waist, finding that he also has a small nerve by his ear that makes him draw sharp breath and grip hard; that nibbling his lip has much the same effect on him as nibbling her own, and finally that there is a limit to his patience with slow exploration, and it's around the same time as hers runs out.

"Decision time, Detective."

"Oh?"

He smiles very lazily, and kisses the tip of her nose when she wrinkles it at him.

"You need to decide whether we stay here, or go there" – he gestures vaguely in the direction of the bedroom – "or stop." Her nose wrinkles further at the last idea. She runs a determined hand downward, and smiles back at him seductively.

"Not the last. Otherwise…surprise me." He doesn't need a second invitation. He sweeps her up into his arms, ignoring her squeak, but not missing the lack of weight, and smirks as he carries her through the apartment and deposits her on her bed.

"Surprised?"

"Yeah. Never got the impression you were that fit. Those jackets are very deceptive."

Castle tuts disappointedly. "I thought you were a detective. Surely you've detected my strong arms and muscular physique? They match my ruggedly handsome face." He looks mischievous. "But if you haven't, I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours."

"Knock yourself out." She runs an appraising glance up and down him, and sits back on her pillows.

"Not like that, Beckett. Come here." She rolls her eyes but assents, standing up next to him. "Like this." He places her hands on his belt and puts his own on hers. "Simultaneously." He grins. "On three?"

"Why wait?" She's undone it so fast he might have whiplash. Oh well… Hers is gone and it's turned into a race to strip the other and despite the handicap that she still has more clothes on than he does he manages to turn it into a dead heat and tip her back down while she's still half-laughing at him and then stop her laughter by taking her mouth and it's changed again: he's hard and fast and forceful and just a little rough with her and she likes that: answers in kind and fights back and matches him. He pins her down with his full weight and holds her hands as if he'll never let her go and presses against her, sliding over her as she moves into place, and pushes home to take her where she always should be, wrapped up in him and around him and with him.

But when they're both satisfied, she doesn't seem to want to cuddle up, lying with his arm under her neck but with, apparently, no desire to be wrapped warmly in. When he tugs a little, she resists, very slightly, and he leaves it: in any case her silence has a sated, contented quality that reassures his temporary insecurity. Soon enough he'll have to leave, and he can think of better ways to spend the remaining time than simply snuggling.

He props himself up on an elbow and looks down at her. She is thoroughly, delightfully rumpled and tumbled, her eyes cloudy and hazy and content.

"I need to clean up," he says, and grins. "Will you wash my back?"

"What's in it for me?" Beckett queries.

"You know what they say: you wash my back and I'll wash yours."

"Are you making me an offer?" she asks, and stretches luxuriously. Castle's eyes follow her form.

"Only if you're accepting it."

"I might," she smirks. "If you're sure it'll be worth my while."

"It will," Castle drawls. "It certainly will."

He extends a hand to her and proceeds to prove it. The shower really isn't helping her to become clean, and when he presses her up against its wall and takes her from behind, using the position to play wickedly without her being able to do anything at all about it, the original purpose of the shower has been wholly lost.

When he washes her off, carefully and tenderly; dries her, his big hands gentle now, soothing; she's sure that he's perfectly happy with the situation. So she hugs him hard before he goes and indulges in a prolonged kiss goodbye and makes it absolutely clear that she appreciates him - and doesn't reveal for one single instant that she wants him to stay and hold her and let her cry.

* * *

_Thank you all for your thoughts. _


	39. Chapter 39

**Chapter 39: Pain behind your eyes**

The door shutting behind him sounds like the closing of a cell door. She pads back to her bedroom, curls into her messy bed, and wraps herself around a pillow, pressing her face into it and breathing in the indefinable aroma that's all that remains of Castle. Alone, she lets her control slip, and remembers.

Some time later, she returns to her list. Staring at the lack of progress with it, unhappy with her inability to make any single item on it move faster, she pulls a clean sheet of paper towards her.

If she can't deal with her father's affairs any better, she'll take another road to absolution. She won't feel guilty about being a cop: that way madness lies. She's not going to sacrifice her excellence at investigation to some misplaced feeling of guilt, she won't resign: she'll use it to try, again, to solve her mother's death. She'd put it down, but now it's time to pick it up again. Not to fall into the same, previous, self-destructive insanity, though. No. She'll give it her best shot, keep at it, and somehow, some way, she'll solve it, or prove to herself that there is no solution. Somewhere out there is the break she needs. When she's found it, she'll stop feeling that she's let both her parents down. If she doesn't (but she will) then she can give her investigation up any time she likes.

She begins to write, the scrawl of her appallingly illegible handwriting concealing the rigorous neatness and order of her thoughts and deductions. Much later, she puts her pen down, sets her alarm and falls asleep.

* * *

Castle had gone home on Saturday quite happy that he and Beckett were back on the right track. She's just as she should be, in the precinct and out: calm, coolly amused and sardonic; happy, outside the precinct, for his arm to be around her and to spend time with him. She initiates time together, and makes it clear she wants his company: she comes to him. But she's very careful to be happy, he begins to think, through the week. She doesn't mention her father at all, nor the time he knows she spends dealing with his affairs, nor any hint of her grief. She doesn't mention anything that isn't cheerful, pleasant, or case-related. He wonders, occasionally, how she's managed to deal with her grief in this short time, but he doesn't have a single hint or tip-off or clue that would tell him whether she's still mourning. He watches, and waits, and learns nothing: all the while she seems to be wholly content with the closer relationship he thinks they're building.

By the end of the following week, he's not nearly as sure that matters are on the right track. Even if she's her usual self in the precinct, she's often missing at lunchtime – not in her stairwell phone-cabinet, and he has no clue where she might be – and when he finally asks her all that she says is that she's still dealing with her father's estate, with a look of annoyance at the administrative burden it's imposing on her. He notices that her eyes are still shuttered as often as not, and when he walks her home and makes love to her, despite her enthusiastic participation and evident enjoyment, she doesn't cuddle in afterwards. She never asks if he would stay, though he feels that it's on the tip of her tongue. He is more than beginning to think that actually nothing is really mended at all.

Nothing changes the following week, either. She's just as reluctant to mention anything unpleasant – reluctant? She never mentions _anything_ unpleasant to him – or difficult or meaningful or personal; and if conversation veers that way, she subtly re-directs it. She's looking tired, all the time, but claims to be sleeping well. He wouldn't know. She hasn't fallen asleep next to him since the night after the funeral. She doesn't ask him to stay, and he doesn't offer; she won't stay with him, claiming that it might upset his family, and he doesn't ask. She's responsive and companionable and still more often than not, often enough, the initiator of time together and time in bed – but he never, now, has the feeling that she's close to him. She never asks for anything, and never hints at anything being wrong, and yet she's tired, and thin, and closed off. This doesn't feel as if it's a relationship that's going somewhere. It feels very like a holding pattern: one step ahead of friends-with-benefits; several steps behind a true relationship.

He thinks back over the preceding weeks. She's talked about nothing significant except their latest case – eco-terrorists and ghosts – and all he's seen in her eyes is cool amusement or shuttered blankness. That would have been fine across the poker table – and she is a very good poker player – but it's not reassuring now. She's pallid under her excellent make-up, and she's worn a thin sweater over her t-shirt every day she hasn't worn a heavy button-down. It's July, and the bullpen air conditioning is not that good. He finds it hot, there. She – doesn't. Dread creeps at his back, that more is wrong than he knows. But he doesn't – yet – push for answers, hoping that by waiting for her to talk she'll open up.

By the time another week and another case have passed, creeping dread has become full-on worry. Mr Blond-Fed had shown up on this one: and he'd been nervous and jealous for the first day or two, unsure if whatever was wrong would lead her back to her ex. But then he'd overheard Beckett telling the Fed – very firmly – that she wasn't interested. Whatever is wrong, she's not interested in rekindling old relationships.

If only she would fully kindle this one. She's not right at all, and she's actively concealing whatever is wrong from him. He'd thought that he'd fixed it, but the last three weeks haven't fixed anything at all. He'd thought that she understood that he'd be there for her, whatever she needed, whenever she needed him, but she won't admit any weakness or need.

And then she cancels on him at almost the last minute, and his ever-present, ever-growing unease becomes outright, desperate terror. She hadn't even called, just texted, an hour before he was due to meet her in a bar. _Sorry_, she'd written, _I'm not feeling good at all. Going to have to skip. B._

* * *

She can't do this, tonight. She can't sit and be happy and pleasant and cheerful and strong. She's found nothing. She's gone back over everything, repeatedly, and there is no more evidence on the case than there was the day she put it down six years ago when Montgomery found her and forced her to see how it was destroying her. Every lunchtime, every evening on which she hasn't seen Castle, she's hunted for a break, and there is _nothing_.

She has to put it down and give it up before it destroys her all over again. She can see herself heading straight for the abyss, and she has to stop, before she falls into the arms of Abbadon. The piled up pages crammed with words are a swamp: waiting to ooze around her and drag her in and drown her in the mud and blood of the alley in which _both_ her parents had died.

And yet the pain and guilt is eating her away. If she were a better cop, a better daughter, just _better_, she _would_ have found something: she would have found a lead, she would have found it in time to save her father. If she'd been a better cop, she'd never have met Rick Rodgers ever again, (she'd never have hauled him in because she'd have recognised that the scenes were just slightly inaccurate) and she wouldn't have precipitated her father's final, fatal, fall off the wagon by being caught on camera with the notorious Rick Castle. Not that it would have mattered. The only way she could have stopped her father's fall would have been to bring her mother back. And the last person that she knows to have been resurrected was brought back two thousand years ago. An impossible task, as impossible as solving the case.

It doesn't help: that clear-sighted knowledge and recognition that she could never have been good enough. It doesn't help that she finally knows its truth. It doesn't help that she finally knows that nothing she could have done would ever have made anything better.

She looks down at her still hands on her notes, the pages beneath her gaunt fingers a testament to how hard she'd tried; the dark rings below her eyes the record of the hours she's spent on it when she should have been sleeping. Montgomery has regarded her departure and arrival within tolerance of her shift hours with approval, has believed that she's been obedient to his decree: in fact all she's done is twisted it to suit herself.

She has to put it down.

And so she summons all her will and does, tearing each page into halves, quarters, eighths, sixteenths: confetti falling into her wastepaper bin along with her hope of ever finding a solution, or absolution.

She looks at her watch – a new one: slim, slightly and unobtrusively feminine, wholly different from the one which she's worn these last few years. She'd only bought it today, and it feels too small and light, unfamiliar on her wrist. Still, it carries no memory, no taint of blood and bourbon, no scar of failure. It tells her that she should be meeting Castle up-town in an hour, and she can't do it. She can't meet him and play nice and act normal and be cheerful. She can't call to cancel, because she knows already that, this once, her voice won't hold steady; and then he'll ask questions that she can't or won't answer for fear of losing him. So she types a text, and hates herself for the cowardice even as she presses _Send_.

It doesn't help that the only thing that is good in her life is the presence of Castle, because she doesn't feel that she can expose her grief and unhappiness after what he'd said. She hasn't dared stay with him even for one single night, or dared to ask him to stay. She doesn't dare curl in and snuggle against him for fear she'll lose her composure and collapse all over him. She doesn't dare stay, in case her sleeping body betrays her and she wakes with the pillow soaked, again; or worse, wakes tucked against him and he soaked with her tears. So she'll keep that away from him and they'll both enjoy everything else. Except tonight. She simply cannot keep herself controlled, tonight.

She's weeping before her text can have reached its destination. Everything she touches is a failure: her mother's case, unsolved; her father's life, cut short; her life, unfulfilled. She can't even manage to have a relationship. The only thing she can do is be a cop, and she can't even do that properly right now because Montgomery won't let her work the hours she wants and needs to. He thinks that she can't handle that. He's wrong. She can handle any amount of work. She can't handle its absence.

It's six weeks since her father died, and her life seems to have died too, buried in the same casket in which he was interred. All her hopes that she could get herself together are lying broken around her with the shreds of her mother's case and the black scrawled lists delineating the ashes of her father's life and death. All the repressed guilt and misery descend upon her, and the bitter tears fall harder on her desk.

Eventually, she's run dry: depleted, drained and with a dull pain behind her eyes. She washes and curls into soft pyjamas and a heavy robe, tucks herself beneath her comforter and, almost but not quite warm, tries to read, tries to forget, tries not to wish that Castle were there. None of it is effective, and she sets the book aside, slips down and drowns in heavy, unrefreshing sleep.

She's woken from a dream of knocking at her door, loud and demanding; by the bleep of her phone. _Beckett, what's up? I know you're home._

* * *

Castle had considered Beckett's text for some time, and then decided to find out what was wrong. Following finding that out, he intends to make it quite unmistakably clear that no matter what, he's there for her to lean on. She is not going to pretend everything is okay and slip through his fingers like sand, leaving no trace. She's been giving him her time and her humour and her body, but she won't show him her heart and her soul, keeping them prisoners behind her eyes. (She'd hidden her real feelings from him for weeks, years ago, and left him broken on her doorstep) She hasn't revealed anything since that very messy crime scene – No. She hasn't revealed anything since she'd called and talked about guilt. It's not implausible that she'd thought she didn't need to – until the bloody scene slapped her round the face. It's far more plausible that she'd wanted to call and hadn't. Katie Beckett, still trying to do it all herself, still sure that no-one else can or will help. Still stuck on _I didn't mean to bother you_, he realises.

She's still not listening to anything he says, because all she hears are the words that have fed her misconceptions. _You call and need something and scare me_. Which she thinks means _You shouldn't have called. You shouldn't need something. You shouldn't scare me_. Except it had meant _You should explain_._ Talk to me_. _Tell me that you need me_. So then she smiles and agrees and says whatever she thinks will make him feel better and be reassured it's not his fault and then sends him away _placated_ and comforted like a child with a sugarplum – and deceived into thinking that she's fine, it's all fine.

In trying not to let him be hurt by her reactions and her problems, in trying to have a relationship of the sort she thought he wanted, where she never _bothers_ him with anything because she doesn't think he can, or wants to, cope with it; in trying not to ask because she doesn't want him to feel he has to give her anything – in trying to protect him from hurt, she's wounded him far more deeply.

And so, when the late-teen who's happy to supplement her allowance by spending an evening with Alexis and a night in the guest room arrives, Castle gathers up his determination and starts for Beckett's apartment.

Regrettably, today's doorman is not Joe. If it had been Joe, Castle's life would have been very much easier, and he wouldn't have had to expend nearly as much effort on getting past. This man looks like an ex-pugilist, and the ex- part of that might only have begun a week ago. Possibly he never troubled Madison Square Gardens, though. Some grimy, sweaty gym in Queens, perhaps. Wherever it was, the aggression he should have left in the ring has clearly been converted into aggressive protectiveness towards his residents. Beckett herself could not have interrogated Castle more harshly. Castle does learn, however, that Beckett has barely been out all day: went out early, back early, hasn't been seen since. Finally, Castle invokes the good offices of the excellent (and bribable) Joe, and is begrudgingly allowed past by the bruiser. He'll get a bit part in a novel, one day soon. Nikki will run him over, or knock him out the way, or arrest him: not that Castle is pettily vengeful about the delay the man has caused him.

He knocks. There's no sound. He knocks harder, and then harder yet, listens and waits. When there's still no sound he sends a text. He's just contemplating asking the surly doorman for assistance when the lock turns over and the door creeps open.

He takes one step in, shoves the door shut without looking back at it and pulls her against him. She looks dreadful. Shorn of make-up and her precinct shell, she looks far worse than she has done. The blinds behind her eyes are missing, and the depth of misery she's carrying is shockingly obvious.

"What's _wrong_?"

"I'm not up to visitors, Castle. I'm sorry, I don't feel so good. I'll be fine by Monday." She sounds dreadful, too. "Thanks for stopping by."

He doesn't answer that, only pulls her closer and walks them to the couch, cradles her into him and wraps her gently into the cage of his body.

"Come here, Beckett."

"You shouldn't be here. You aren't supposed to be here," she whispers, hurt and …worry? No. She sounds resigned. "You're not supposed to see this." She tries to pull away, and for the first time ever in his life Castle stops a woman moving away from him.

"Not supposed to see _what_? That you're upset and unhappy? Why not?" There's only an inaudible mutter. He brings her in closer still, until she has no choice but to pillow her head on his chest. "Why not, Beckett?"

"It's not your problem."

"You're my problem."

"Yeah," she bites out, "that's the point. I'm a problem. I'm a mess, and you don't need to deal with it."

"Yes, but you're _my_ mess."

There's another wholly unintelligible mutter. He strokes her back comfortingly. "Come here," he says again: stupid, banal words that mean nothing and don't say anything of what he wants to say: scared to push, scared not to. "Tell me what's up, or don't tell me, but stop pretending you're okay. You're not."

There's a long space of quiet, but she's not trying to pull away now. While she's not trying to move away, he can wait. For the first time in three weeks, she's not further shutting him out, and he can wait.

"I can't find anything." He doesn't understand that, but bites his tongue. "I can't find anything, and I had to put it down, because if I don't I'll kill myself trying." _Oh_. Her mother's case? Is that what she's been doing? "There isn't anything to find. She's dead, he's dead, and I don't have any answers for them." Her voice is the same dead, controlled tone he's heard before. "So I put it down. Tore it up." There's a gaping, ghastly pause into which the ghouls of her past slither; bloody wraiths and ghosts haunting her. "Failed them both," she says, and the blade of the guillotine falls on her word.

He doesn't know whether she's crying. He can't tell from her voice, and he's holding her tightly enough that small movements are effectively blocked. He doesn't want to loosen his grip, in case he loses her. She might drain away, like water into sand.

"If you haven't found it, there's nothing to find." Another long span of silence.

"I put all his stuff in storage. They packed it all up and gave me an inventory." Her voice is slow, dragging. "The apartment's perfectly clean. It's being let."

"Did you keep anything?" It's a dangerous question. He hasn't noticed anything new in her place. But he can't believe she didn't.

"No. Maybe... maybe some other time, I'll go through it."

She hasn't even looked through her father's stuff? That's not good. Not good at all. _Don't say it, Rick. Don't say it_.

"Ow!"

"Huh?"

"Bit my tongue." _In more ways than one_. At this point normal-Beckett would say _shall I kiss it better_? This unhappy shade has completely missed her feed line. He cuddles her in and pets her, soothing without any demands, and gradually she's soft against him. She hasn't relaxed into him in this wholly trusting way, not hiding, not pretending she's _fine_, not trying to leave and deal with 'stuff', since the day after the funeral. And despite how miserable she is, and how much he wishes she hadn't hidden it all from him, right now, suddenly, he's happier about where they're going than he has been in three weeks.

* * *

_Thank you to all readers and reviewers, guest and logged in. I really enjoy knowing what you think._


	40. Chapter 40

**Chapter 40: Everybody needs somebody**

"I should have done more," she says, after another, shorter, space.

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Made him go to counselling; made him stay with me; been there more." There's a tense gap, before she restarts, her voice stretched and guilty. "Every other binge… Truth is, every binge was triggered by something I did. Went back to Stanford to finish the year. Transferred to NYU. Joined the Academy. Graduated from the Academy. Saw him. Didn't see him. Went to counselling. Joined the force. I never told him about the cases, but somehow he found out some of them. Maybe they were in the papers. I don't know, I never told him." She is, quite definitely, crying now. His shirt is damp. Her voice, however, is cold, judicial: judging her own actions and finding them wanting. "If I hadn't been a cop, then maybe… but I couldn't _not_ be a cop."

There's nothing he can say, to that. She could never have not been a cop, and she's brilliant at it.

"Maybe if I'd found her killer…" There's no more to say about that. She didn't then, and she can't now.

"You said to me," Castle says quietly, "that _he'd have drunk himself to death whatever_." Every last syllable of that particular conversation is graven on his memory as bleakly as the engraving on a headstone. "You said _they drink no matter what. No-one's to blame_." Sudden tension flares in the air about her, in the tight constriction of her muscles in his grasp, in the soundless movement of her shallow breathing. "So how are you to blame?"

He doesn't let her interject before carrying on. "And before that I said when you remembered I'd still be here with you. I didn't mean that I'd only be here if you were _fine_. I meant I'd be here. There's only one condition."

She's even more tense.

"You stop hiding from me. You stop pretending everything's okay and it's all _fine_. I don't care if you want to talk or don't want to talk, but don't pretend it's all okay and hide what you're really thinking." He tips up her chin so he can see her. "It's okay if you need someone to lean on, sometimes. It's okay if you need" – he doesn't say _want_ – "to cry." He grins without much humour, very briefly. "I always have Kleenex." He searches in a pocket, and produces one, to prove it. There's a tiny lightening of the gloom around her. He tucks it into her hand. "There," he says. A very soggy effort at a glare appears.

"I've got Kleenex. I'm not a child."

"I sure hope not. I don't want arrested." And a tiny eye-roll to go with the slight – so slight – lightening and the glare. It's all still very soggy, though. He returns to soothing, gentle stroking, leaving her next to him in the crook of his arm, not pulling her on to his lap.

"Have you been sleeping, Beckett?" Her eyes flick away.

"I was asleep when you got here."

Castle sighs.

"No hiding. Have you slept properly – you know, something approximating to eight hours? – since" – he just stops himself from saying _the funeral_ – "I last stayed over?" He's using his best firm, I-want-answers, tone. He's not at all sure that it will work on Beckett. (It had never worked on Katie.)

"No," she eventually admits.

"Shall I" –

"Would you" –

"Stay?" they say together.

"For a while," Beckett continues. Yeah, he'll stay for a while. A long while.

"Sure." She nestles into him as soon as he's said it. He realises that she's dressed in pyjamas and a robe. She really must have been in bed. She might even have been asleep when he knocked.

"Have you eaten, Beckett? I'm hungry."

Beckett thinks, vaguely. She probably had lunch. Maybe. She doesn't really remember. "Not dinner."

"Let's get takeout, then. I'm sure there's nothing in your fridge without even having to look."

Thai is duly ordered, after which Beckett says nothing and Castle declines to do anything more than make soothing gestures and keep her snuggled in against him where she's warm and comfortable. He thinks that she's thinking, and he doesn't want to push the point until she's ready to talk, or, if not talk (which is most likely) at least stop hiding from him.

Beckett is indeed thinking. She is, in fact, thinking that she's (again) misunderstood where Castle is at. She's good at that, she muses bitterly. She'd thought that he didn't need to know about her issues, or want to. He clearly seems to think he does. Want to, that is, not need to. He's very carefully not asking about them, or prying, which for a man as curious and inquisitive as he is quite astonishing. (He'd always used to ask. So she'd simply kept clear until there wasn't a problem for him to pry into any more; hiding because she had never trusted that he really meant anything he said. She'd thought that she'd been wholly correct in that, until four months ago.)

This time she'd hidden because she didn't want to lose him. That time she'd hidden because she'd never really, deep down, thought she had him. Any way she cuts it, though, the result was the same. She'd hidden because she didn't trust his feelings. Which for someone who'd asked him to follow her to her father's deathbed, told him she trusted him and leant on him when she couldn't stand for herself any longer – is a bit peculiar, to say the least. _So why didn't you believe him, Kate?_ She thinks back. Because he'd said… he'd said… she called and needed something and scared him and didn't explain. And she thought he meant it was too much to ask. _But you didn't check, did you? Just like you didn't check way back when._ _Call yourself a cop_?

She concentrates very hard on making her voice steady, in the way she'd learned to in order to talk to her father without breaking down.

"Why were you so angry with me after we got the call about the jewellery murders?" The swift hard clench of his hands on her shoulder and waist tells her she's struck a nerve. He doesn't say anything, and his big body isn't relaxed and comfortable any more.

"Because I knew you weren't right, and I was scared." And he's scared now, she thinks: stress fractures in his normally smooth baritone, the words a little constricted, muscles tight, and his hands still gripping.

"Scared?"

There's an unpleasant silence.

"Yeah, _scared_. I had no clue what you were thinking or what you might do."

"I thought you'd had enough of me needing..." her voice trails off at his expression.

"_Needing_?" His voice soars with incredulity. "You never need anything. Or if you do you never ask. You never talk about anything and then you pretend everything's okay until it all falls apart. Then you run away." His tone returns almost to normal. "Then you pretend none of it ever happened."

His hands drop from her and his frame slumps. "None of it," he repeats. "So I have no clue what's going on in your head." His voice falls away to nothing. "I never did."

"I thought you'd go if I leaned on you too much."

"I am not your father!" he yells.

"_What_?" She stares at him for an instant, then turns her head away again.

"I am not your father," Castle says more calmly. And then he understands what she has actually said. "You didn't want me to leave?" He can't decide whether to be furious that she thought he would go or delighted that she wanted so badly to be with him that she'd put herself under that stress to do so. She's not looking at him.

"What do you mean _you're not my father_?" she says, still not looking.

"You hid everything you felt from your father in case you triggered another binge," Castle says bluntly, completely sure of his conclusion. "You didn't show him you were upset because he couldn't cope and couldn't help. You didn't even expect him to try." He pulls her back round and looks at her face. The tears are silently sliding down her cheeks. "You don't have to hide from me." If she hadn't hidden, way back when… No point in _ifs_. She had. It's past, and he's not that boy and she's not that girl. "Come here, sweetheart. Come here." He pillows her against him and simply lets her cry.

She's still sniffling when the door sounds with dinner. Castle deals with it efficiently and without allowing Beckett a chance to do anything. He's back beside her almost before she'd realised what was going on.

"Dinner," he says firmly. "Come on." Beckett stands up slowly and is steered to the table. Once she starts eating, she realises that she is hungry and rapidly puts away a considerable quantity of dinner. It doesn't produce a considerable quantity of words, however, though it does produce some more intelligent thought than she's managed so far this evening. She'd been so used to being unable to rely on anyone for anything and locking everything away – so used to her father's inability to support her and his dislike for any problems, including his own – that she'd believed that everyone was like that. Why should she not believe that? It was her whole experience.

Except. Except it wasn't her experience with Castle. She goes back to her earlier thought. She'd trusted him and leant on him when she couldn't stand on her own. He'd been there and never, ever, suggested that she'd asked for too much. In fact, he'd said – and written, to the extent a text is writing – _anything you need, anytime, you could never ask too much_, over and over again. But she hadn't thought about it properly, lost in her grief and guilt, and then she'd thought she had fixed it, and then they'd had a fight, and she'd gone back to her normal beliefs. About the only redeeming feature in there is that she'd tried to keep a relationship going.

"Coffee?" she asks. It's a delaying tactic, while she tries to think of anything to say to explain.

"Yes, please."

She makes coffee, slowly, and thinks. All her thinking is coalescing into one idea: she could try telling Castle what she really feels. The thought scares the hell out of her. Admitting her weaknesses isn't her favourite occupation. Baring her soul is a long way behind that. Admitting her feelings in plain words is even further behind. Castle slides up next to her and stands close. If she weren't dealing with boiling water, she suspects that he'd already have an arm – if not both arms – around her. She's not sure that that would help, right now. Curling into him and simply letting him take all the pain, all the strain, away would be very consoling. It wouldn't, however, solve the instant problem.

She needs to solve the instant problem before she can feel at all comfortable relying on Castle's strength to supplement her own. He clearly wants to provide whatever she needs, and he's equally clearly very unhappy that she wouldn't ask him. So she needs to tell him why she wouldn't, or couldn't, and didn't. Which is rather difficult, because any way she puts it saying _I couldn't believe you still meant it_ is not exactly flattering. Though she's already said that, and not only has he not walked out (amazingly) he's – oh. Walked through her head like it's his own and picked up the issues she didn't know she had and hit the nail on the head. _You couldn't trust your father. Couldn't trust him not to binge, or to support you. So you don't trust anyone._ Ten years of not trusting anyone. Until now.

At some point, she has to make a decision. At some point, she has to decide to take a leap of faith. At some point, she has to decide whether she's going to try and have a life. _But you already decided that_, says an irritating little voice._ You decided that weeks ago_. _Along with deciding that Castle isn't meaningless._ _Along with deciding you were going to try to make it mean something._ _Get with your own programme, Kate. _

Now, or never.

She turns around, to find Castle almost on top of her. He looks serious, but not worried: as if he has more confidence in her than she does. (This would not be hard, she thinks bitterly.)

"I didn't want to lose you," she says, and stops. Castle's initial move towards her stops too. She slumps a little. So much for not worried. He's not worried because he's already decided. Still, she's got this far. She might as well explain the rest. "I wanted to pull myself together and then try. I thought I'd managed it and it would all be okay. So I asked you on a date." She turns away, head bent. He's not coming any closer, and she's sure it's all falling apart. "But then you and your daughter… and then I had so much to deal with… and then after the safe murder it sounded like you'd had to deal with enough of my problems. So I thought – I thought if I could deal with everything it would be okay. You'd stick around."

He's still not moving. She picks up the coffee tray and takes it to the table by the couch, sits down in the corner of the couch and clings to her coffee cup as if it's a lifebelt, drinks it as if it's the antidote to a fatal poison. There's no more to say. She calls on her control and doesn't speak or cry. The time for weeping is long past.

Suddenly Castle appears beside her, arm descending around her shoulders. "So you were going to fix yourself?" Beckett nods. "And you thought you could do it without me noticing anything was wrong?" Another nod. "Is that why you wouldn't stay?" There's a long, empty silence. "It is," Castle says flatly. "You wouldn't stay in case you gave something away." There's a slight hiatus, during which his arm doesn't move. "If you'd stayed you thought I'd have known something was wrong. Didn't you think I knew already?" She shrugs.

"I thought you were fine with how it was. You never said anything else."

"I was trying not to push you. Every time I've pushed you you've run. I thought you'd talk to me because you had been talking to me."

"I'd been weeping pathetically into your shirt front. Hardly talking, Castle." He makes an exasperated noise.

"Okay, communicating. I don't care – I _said_ this twice already – if you talk or don't talk as long as you _stop hiding_." He's tightened his arm round her, and now he pulls her head round to face him. "I want you to stop hiding how you really feel from me. You can ask for anything – because you _never_ ask for anything. You won't ask for too much _because_ you don't ask for anything." He leans a little way down and kisses her, very gently. "You don't have to do it on your own. I'm here. I'm staying here, whatever happens, just so long as you stop hiding."

He kisses her much harder, full stop to the sentence, and pulls her hard in. "You couldn't have done anything more to save your dad. You told me that they drink whatever, and no-one's to blame. You're not to blame, Beckett. I know you don't believe that, but it's true."

"If I'd solved my mother's case, maybe he'd have been okay." She's already said that. "But I can't find anything at all."

And suddenly Castle has an idea. "There is one route." There's sudden tension in her body. "I know a guy. A pathologist." She's not, yet, disagreeing. "If you want me to – _only_ if you want me to – I could ask him to take a look." He looks her straight in the eye.

"I won't let you kill yourself trying, Beckett. But if you wanna go with this, I won't let you shut me out either. Whether you want my guy to look or not, you don't get to shut yourself away. I told you that you could never ask too much. You haven't."

"I put it down," she says. "I tore up all my notes so I couldn't go back to it. How's your guy going to look at it?"

"I hope you're good at jigsaw puzzles, then. Sounds like we've got a lot of puzzle to do."

The pile of paper shreds on the table is not inviting. Castle looks at Beckett who looks at the pile and then looks back at him.

"Have you any Scotch tape? We need" – he looks at the pile – "about five miles, I reckon." And just maybe, while they're involved in the intellectual challenge of putting it all back together again, they might manage to have more of this conversation.

"Is this really a good idea, Castle?" It sounds like a genuine question, but although she's tagged his name to it he doesn't think she's actually asking him. It's more of a question to herself.

"What d'you mean?"

"I couldn't solve it last time. I only went back to it because" – she stops.

"Because?"

There's a silence. There are far too many silences in this evening's non-conversation. Castle doesn't endeavour to fill it, however. The last time he did that, before tonight, it was disastrous.

"I couldn't save Dad. I couldn't solve Mom's case. I let them down. So I thought I'd try again."

"So why'd you tear it all up?"

"It was… I was heading straight into the rabbit hole all over again. I had to stop. Before I couldn't stop."

Castle tightens his arm round her, and waits some more.

"If I start again, and we" – he starts, at that – "find anything, I'll go after it." That sinks into the air.

"Let's do the puzzle, Beckett. We don't have to do anything more. You can leave it for now. My guy will still be around in a day or a week or a month." He pauses. "Is that why you wouldn't come out? Because you'd just put it down?" She nods.

"It was just too much."

There's silence while they start to sort, then re-arrange, match and tape together.

"Beckett, your writing is _appalling_. Do you dictate to a drunk spider with its legs dipped in ink?" Beckett quirks an annoyed eyebrow in reply. "It's totally illegible."

"Like yours is perfect copperplate, Castle?" He colours slightly.

"Well...er..."

"This way the low-lives can't read my notes. What's your excuse?"

"Signing throughput. I need to be quick. There are so many fans" – he grins _very_ smugly – "that otherwise lots would leave disappointed. This way none do."

"So they don't get to spend quality time with you and be disappointed then?"

Castle humphs. "You haven't been disappointed yet." To prove it, he leans over and kisses her deeply; allows one hand to stroke over her cheek and the other over her back, till she's soft and yielding and the snark has all dissolved. "C'mon, Beckett. Let's get this finished."

"What's the hurry?"

"You don't get any more till we're done."

Becket notes the predatory darkness in his eyes and decides swiftly that enquiring _any more what?_ is likely to be disturbing to her composure. Still, the prospect is pleasant. More pleasant than the paper in front of them. For all his insulting comments on her handwriting, Castle is fitting scraps together very fast indeed. It's ridiculous. She's the one who is trained to assemble evidence, and she's done her fair share of re-assembling before now.

When it's all done, and her Scotch tape is down to the last inch or so, she looks at the pages and sighs unhappily. In Pavlovian response, a hug arrives.

"What's wrong?"

"I tore it up so I had to put it down. Now it's all back here. If I keep it, I'll dive right back in. I'll never leave it alone." She stops suddenly, and her tone shifts to decisive. "You keep it." She pushes the pile at him.

"Me?" Castle ejaculates.

"You. I can't work on it if I don't have it. I can wait and decide about seeing your pathologist pal later without being sucked back in."

"Me?" Castle says again, in disbelief. "Are you _sure_?" She nods.

"I'm sure. To get it back, I'd need to ask, so I'd think about it first." She looks happier. "You take it. Keep it for me."

Castle looks very seriously at Beckett. "Okay. But any time you want it..."

"You said you won't let me kill myself trying to solve it. So you keep it."

* * *

_Thank you to all readers and reviewers, logged in and guest. I can't answer guest reviews, but I appreciate them just as much as those who are logged in. If you are logged in, you will be answered._


	41. Chapter 41

**Chapter 41: Dancing with tears in your eyes**

It's fair to say that Castle is flabbergasted. Gobsmacked, in the UK vernacular, which right now seems a better word. He might as well have been smacked in the mouth. Beckett wants him to keep her papers and trusts him to stop her falling right back into it? He pinches himself, which hurts, and looks out the window to ensure that the sky is not pink, or that Manhattan no longer exists. Neither appears to be the case: therefore he has not been transplanted to a parallel universe, nor, on the basis of the pain from the pinch, is he dreaming. She actually means it. Asked for something. The largest _something_ that she could ever have asked for. (Well, short of proposing. And if they get to that stage – and he hopes very much that they eventually will – he'd rather like to propose to her.) _She's all in_. She's really, truly, all in; even if she herself hasn't consciously realised it.

A small vestigial sliver of insecurity drops away. Until a moment ago, he had still thought, in a small dark corner of his heart and mind, that she would keep holding herself away, keep holding back from him, just like she has done for the last three weeks. But after her astounding admission and still more astounding request, he's sure that her reasoning had been exactly what she'd outlined: _I thought you'd go_, _I didn't want to lose you_. So she'd done what she thought she needed to do to keep him, hidden her feelings and need for him so that he would stay.

"I'll keep them," he reiterates, tapping the pile of paper. "I won't let you fall." He stops, then restarts. "Or if you do, I'll be with you." He brings her closer beside him and drops a soft kiss like a vow on her hair. There's a small silence while they sit tucked together.

"What about your dad's affairs?" Castle asks. He's got this far, he thinks, so he might as well try to bring everything out in the open.

"I'm doing what I can. It's all with the attorneys." She shivers slightly. "There's nothing more to clear up. It all comes to me anyway, except for some donations. I don't need to do anything more except when the attorney needs instructions. All the Manhattan possessions are already in storage. The apartment's being let."

Castle cuddles her in next to him and tries to think of a way to put his next sentence that doesn't imply criticism. "Didn't you want anything?"

"What, like half-empty whiskey bottles?" Beckett snaps. But then she stops. "That wasn't fair. No." She draws a pained breath. "I took everything I wanted the first time. There's nothing there." Castle doesn't precisely believe that. Beckett's still talking. "All the good memories are upstate. I went through them while I was there." Her head has dropped, and there's a very quiet sniff. Castle wraps her closer.

"When – if – you want to, I'll come with you, if you like." Another sniff escapes. He slides her over into his lap and simply holds on to her: keeping her warm. Her hands are cold where they lie still and soft under one of his. Dinner doesn't seem to have done much to warm her up. He encourages her inward: she's so slim, now, that he dwarfs her, envelops her as her head drifts to his shoulder. He confidently expects – and hopes – that she will shortly fall asleep in his embrace. There will be time for other matters when she's rested. Lots of time.

But strangely, she's not succumbing to her undoubted, stress-fuelled, exhaustion: there's none of the heavy limpness that would betray her slumber. She's a little more relaxed, but not asleep. Her hand turns up under his to interlock their fingers: the old, familiar gesture, but this time it's her fingers tightening around his. (It had always been he who tightened his grip, before. Never she.) It seems this conversation may not be done quite yet.

"I thought if I just went back to work, it would all be okay. I wouldn't have to think about any of it. It would all be happening in the background." She shivers, again. "It always worked before. The job always helped. But then Montgomery wouldn't let me work and I hadn't anything else except the case" – he doesn't ask. He knows which case. They've only just finished sticking it back together – "to stop me remembering. So I needed it." She isn't saying _because I thought I didn't really have you_, but Castle is thinking it, nonetheless. "It gave me a place" – she gulps, sniffs, stops and starts again – "to hide it all." She doesn't say _to hide me_, but Castle hears it.

"All what?" he murmurs gently, after a moment.

"Everything," she answers hopelessly. "Couldn't save him, couldn't stop dripping over you like a leaking faucet, couldn't solve the case, couldn't make anything happen to clear up his affairs. Couldn't bear to see you and your family. Mine's all gone and you're all so happy." There's an edge of acid grief on that. She tries to pull away, but he doesn't release his grip. "Then the boys had solved everything that came in when I was upstate" – she still won't describe that accurately, either. The words are _compassionate leave_, Beckett – "and I could barely maintain when I saw the scene. Could barely do the job, and I wasn't needed anyway. They could do it themselves." The flow checks again: a ragged breath, no sniff this time, and her hand locked on his as if he's her lifeline, but he can't see her face, and if he let go he's sure she'd run. So he doesn't let go.

"Come here, sweetheart," he says softly, as he had done earlier, "come here," and brings her head down against his chest again, while he ponders what she's said.

He gradually realises that there's a family resemblance here. Covering up problems, hiding, seems to be a Beckett family trait: her father had hidden in alcohol, Beckett herself in her work. He wonders if she's ever realised how like her father she must be, only she must also be far stronger. Presumably that came from her mother, the ability to channel an addictive personality into a more acceptable route. She'd never really mentioned her family: both lawyers, that's about all he'd ever known. Not a profession in which coasting is a route to success, in New York. So. Two ambitious, driven parents, once upon a time, and one child: ambitious, driven Katie. (She'd wanted to be the first female Chief Justice.) Then disaster, and the other parent spiralling downward: so Katie became Beckett and refused to let anything stop her burying all her grief and misery and resentment (how much did she resent her father? How much of her guilt is because of that?) in being the best cop that anyone could be, long past sanity and reason, long past any effort at having a life.

And then he showed up in her life again, and, after a few false starts, they found a new accommodation, a relationship – and Beckett decided she was in it for real and, in a very Beckett way now that he actually thinks about it, decided that she would make it work. If only she hadn't decided to make it work in the same way that she made her relationship with her drunken father work: by never letting on that anything was wrong, by never asking for anything at all. That's not what he wants, but he hopes that now, after tonight, she realises it.

He contemplates her words a little further, and snags hard on something else. _Couldn't bear to see you and your family. Mine's all gone and you're all so happy._ Ah. No wonder that she wouldn't stay, between death and funeral, no wonder that she'd been crying in his bathroom before Dispatch called her to a gruesome scene. No wonder that she wouldn't tell him about it, either. He doesn't exactly see a good way to put _seeing_ _your happy family is upsetting me_. Not if you're Beckett, anyway. So she hid that, too, and no doubt another unhealthy dose of guilt about it. She carries so much guilt, he wonders how she manages not to drown in it. Yet none of it is rational. Then again, grief and guilt have little to do with rationality and much to do with feelings – those same feelings that she suppresses all the time.

She needs to grieve; she needs to accept her feelings and work through them; she needs to accept that feelings aren't weakness. There's a time and a place for feelings, and sure that isn't at the precinct or dealing with those bereaved through murder – but there has to be a time for Beckett to have feelings. There has to be a time for Beckett to have downtime and not be badass Beckett who never needs anything or anyone.

It dawns on him that he had provided that, right up till the point he'd pushed her about the crime scene and she'd taken it to mean _you've asked for too much_ rather than _lean on me_. She'd accepted his support, too – and asked for it. She'd asked him to come to the hospital. She'd called him, and called on him – and, he is suddenly absolutely sure – been hopelessly insecure about it and worried every second-to-last moment that she was overstepping and asking too much, and then worried every last moment that he'd have had enough of it. Because no-one had ever been there when she needed them – and continuing that particular line of thought, she'd never let anyone see she needed them, only ever relied – maybe – on her family, and then couldn't even do that without sending her father down the neck of a bottle. So she didn't show anyone that she ever needed anything. (She'd never shown him that she needed anything, he'd forced support upon her. That was – maybe – fine when she was fourteen, and – possibly – a little less fiercely independent, though that's a little unlikely. It's not at all appropriate when she's twenty-nine.)

And here is not-badass Beckett in his arms and not – quite – trying to hide. He pats her back, half a stroke: comfort and warmth. Her hand is still cold below his; her grip slackened; her head still on his chest. He flicks a glance at his watch, and notices that it's nearly ten. He's been here a couple of hours, and Beckett was exhausted when he arrived.

"Beckett?"

"Mm?" It's too quiet to be reassuring.

"Bedtime."

"Mm?"

"Bedtime. You need to sleep." There's a hard tension in her shoulders that wasn't there a moment ago. "I'll stay, if you want me to?" The tension doesn't drop one whit. He suddenly realises what's wrong: he's putting the onus on her to _ask_ him for something. That's not a good plan, tonight. "I mean, I'll stay, unless you tell me not to. I wanna stay with you."

It still takes a few moments for her to ease down, for the knot in her back to dissipate, for her to soften enough for him to slide out from under her, stand and then simply lift and carry her, far too light for her height, to her room. He hasn't been granted the opportunity to lift her like this in three weeks, and he's privately horrified by her lack of mass. He'd not noticed that, in bed, and guilt bites at him. He should have noticed: she'd been too light three weeks ago, and it doesn't seem like she's eaten any better since.

She steers herself to the bathroom, clearly on autopilot, returns to the bedroom and crumples into the bed, barely noticing that the comforter's been turned back, or that Castle then pulls it over her.

"I'll just clean up," he says, memory of the night after the funeral choking him. When he returns, though, she's not asleep. He slides in beside her, and lays a strong arm over her waist, comfort without closeness, until she should make it clear that she's ready to curl in. Care, not claustrophobia. Parity, not possession or protection or even passion, until she makes it clear whether she might want any one. No matter how much he wants to provide any, or indeed all, of them. She's twenty-nine, and hasn't believed in anyone since she was nineteen. She hasn't ever believed in him. He's got one chance now, and he intends to take it. He thinks, and hopes, that this time she's ready for him to take it.

Abruptly, jerkily, she rolls over into his side, under his arm, and scrapes her own arm hastily over his body. He automatically pulls her into a comfortable position, slips an arm under her neck so that she's pillowed on his pectoral and tucked into his side, and waits. Shortly he becomes aware of a small patch of damp gathering between her cheek and his chest. He doesn't say a single word about it, simply cossets her through the soft, sloppy tee that she's wearing and waits some more. It might seem, on first blush, that Beckett weeping over him is a step backwards: in fact it's a stride forwards; showing she can stop being strong with him if she needs to.

She's still chilled, and now she's doing exactly what she knew would happen if she curled into Castle's wide, warm body: crying silently and hopelessly for everything that her life should have been. Six weeks after her father's death, she's still deep in grief and misery: mourning, she suddenly realises, _both_ her parents. Shock claws through her, as it dawns on her that she'd never properly mourned her mom, that the therapy and the job and the strain of her father's descent into addiction and degradation had covered it all up. Even when she'd gone through everything at the cabin, she hadn't really let herself grieve properly: she'd cried, sure, but she'd stopped it as soon as she could, thought it was done and convinced herself she'd moved on.

Except she hadn't moved on at all. She'd simply hidden it: squashed it down and away and forgotten it; let it squirrel into her subconscious and drive her work ethic straight on to the freeway to workaholic. Once she'd broken up with Will, it had had free rein, and she'd lost herself in work. It had been a better option than watching her father promise to save himself and break his word, over and over; a better option than working through the issues she hadn't known she still had; a better option than trying to find a life that, under it all, she didn't believe she could have.

Castle's murmuring soothing nonsense into her hair, holding her close and not demanding anything at all except that she stays near and doesn't hide. She's not sure she could move, even did she want to, all the release of the long-pent-up grief and misery and suppression of her feelings as unstoppable as a dam breaking. Ten years of suppression, and more before that, though very minor in the context of her larger tragedy. A learned response that she'd only learned to practice, never to overcome. She buries her face further into his frame and this time doesn't try to stop herself crying. He's said he doesn't care as long as she doesn't hide. Well, they'll both find out if that's true, because she's drowning in salt water.

Some time later the tears have stopped trickling on to Castle, who hasn't let go of her for a single instant. She's wrung out, unmoving now not through choice but inability. Crying hasn't made her feel any better, only more exhausted. Castle, however, is moving. She's too tired to care: just another misery to add to the many. Until he turns back to her, a Kleenex from the box on her nightstand in his hand, and dabs carefully at her face and then scrubs at his chest.

"There," he says softly. "Now you won't be sleeping in a puddle," and he gathers her back into the same embrace and snuggles her in so that his heartbeat is under her ear. He's warm, and most importantly he's there. She finds a small drop of energy and curls her hand up round his shoulder. Seconds later her damp lashes are drying on her cheek and her body is completely limp. Castle, both unable and unwilling to move at all, contemplates with somewhat bittersweet satisfaction the results of the evening, until he falls into sleep himself.

* * *

Beckett wakes to find herself unusually warm, though it takes her a moment to remember why that should be. She's still in Castle's arms, though sometime during the night it's all become rearranged so that she's spooned into him and his soft breathing is whiffling the short tendrils of hair on her neck. She curls down again and closes her eyes, just for a second.

When Castle wakes, with a pleasantly present armful of sleeping Beckett, his first thought is to take some considerable time to enjoy it. That done, and enjoyment turning to discomfort, he slides carefully out of bed to wash and clean his teeth with his finger – he still can't find a spare toothbrush: really most unsatisfactory – and switch the kettle on. Then he returns to bed, to spend some more time comfortably cuddled up. Or possibly uncomfortably. He's very happy to be in bed with Beckett. Delighted, in fact, just like every other time. He only wishes that she were awake to be delighted too. Or anything, really, just as long as she's not hiding.

He _also _wishes that she were awake because he'll need to go home in not terribly long and he'd rather like her to be awake when he does. He doesn't want to leave her to wake alone, even if he leaves a note. He could always wake her, which is a very tempting option. She's sleep-mussed and adorable – and out cold, which implies that she needs the rest. He squints at the clock. It's eight-thirty. He'll need to go no later than nine-thirty. He looks down at sound-asleep Beckett and decides that he'll take the one guaranteed route to waking her. He'll make coffee – in a moment or two. If that doesn't wake her, an earthquake wouldn't.

It takes him ten minutes, during which Beckett doesn't move at all except to snuggle in closer – once – to move. He just keeps thinking that one more moment would be very, very nice. Finally he manages to work out that nice as each individual moment is, the total is rapidly adding up to very bad, because the next thing he is going to do is kiss her awake, and if he starts kissing her it's entirely possible that it will all explode into the mindless, frantic, desperate sex that feels fabulous but isn't what he wants. He wants to _make love_ to her, not _have sex_, or worse, _fuck_. She's still too raw for him to start down that route, because he's not at all sure that he can stop either of them. He's – she's – not managed it any time so far.

But suddenly, finally, he knows what he's going to do to bring this safely home.

* * *

_Thank you, everyone. All reviewers and readers, followers and those who have favourited are very much appreciated. _


	42. Chapter 42

**Chapter 42: Let your heart decide**

He makes coffee and wafts it close enough to Beckett that even in her sleep her nose twitches and her eyelashes flicker. When he repeats the pass there's enough movement of her eyelids that he considers that she is really waking up. He sits on the edge of the bed, sipping his own coffee and watching Beckett return to consciousness. It takes a few more seconds than he anticipates – then again, he's only seen her wake once.

"I need to go home soon, Beckett." There's a swift flicker of disappointment over her face. "Why don't you come over for dinner, or if you don't want dinner come over a bit later for a glass of wine? We're usually done by half past seven." He's giving her space. He _wants _her to come over now, or at least once she's washed and dressed. But that's claustrophobic and silly and absolutely not required.

"Not dinner," she blurts out. "I'll come over after." She still can't look at his happy little family having happy family meals. Not yet. But she can have a glass of wine and deal with them for a shorter time. She can.

"Okay," says Castle contentedly. It's a lot more than he thought she'd agree to.

Beckett doesn't do much on Sunday, after Castle's left. She has a desultory lunch, deals with her chores, fails to settle to anything much. She's still drained, but drainage, it seems, hasn't yet unblocked the sinkful of issues which are drowning her. She sets off for Castle's loft after an equally desultory dinner, wishing she'd never agreed to go at all.

When she arrives, though, Martha is missing, and while opening the door Castle is finishing a conversation about homework. Or rather, Alexis is lecturing Castle on the importance of a good work ethic and organisation and Castle is defending the value of procrastination and the volcano-variety desk with a wide grin that strongly suggests he doesn't believe a word of his own argument. Alexis is eventually dispatched, and Castle invites Beckett to choose between wine, coffee or soda.

"Which will it be, Beckett?" Oddly, there's no reply. He turns round from the fridge, and discovers that there is also no Beckett. A second's further glance tells him that his office door is displaced. A few fast strides inform him that Beckett is buried in one of his armchairs and closed into herself, head down.

"What's up?" There's an almost inaudible sniff, and a pause.

"My dad would have been like that. Mom couldn't bear his desk. It was always a mess." She stops. Castle deposits a box of Kleenex within her reach and squats a little creakily in front of her, taking her hands.

" 'S okay. Take your time." She's gripping hard enough to stop the blood flowing to his fingers. He extricates one hand and places it tentatively on Beckett's shoulder. Astonishingly, she leans towards him in response, and he kneels (with some relief, squatting is uncomfortable) in front of her to hold her close.

A little time later, Beckett looks up, eyes still suspiciously shiny, lashes betrayingly damp. "It's pathetic," she bites. "I can't even watch you and Alexis together." Castle says nothing, yet. "It's petty and unpleasant and ridiculous."

"No, it's loss." Castle sounds perfectly confident of his conclusion, in that unemphatic statement. "You had a good relationship with your dad when you were Alexis's age and now he's gone without it being repaired. Being upset when you see the same isn't petty, it's normal. The less you fight the upset, the sooner it will pass." His didactic tone fails to raise any hint of a glare. He leaves that subject. "Drink?" he asks hopefully. For an instant, he thinks she'll refuse, and then leave.

"Coffee, please." He's more relieved than he would have expected. He's on the point of asking why coffee, when he glances at her pinched, pale face and understands that she's cold, again: that chill of the soul not the body. He returns to the kitchen to concoct the hottest coffee he can, and while it's brewing goes to say goodnight to Alexis and remind her that homework is to stop at nine. Really.

Coffee helps. Beckett recovers a modicum of her normal self and manages to think that Castle was likely correct. At the cabin she'd simply let the grief wash through her – but then she hadn't finished with it: she'd only tried to deal with the early, happy memories. Now she needs to deal with the contrast between that, and her father as he later became, held up to her in the harsh comparative light of Castle's relationship with his own daughter. _Watch, compare, and then you have to let it wash through you, Kate_. Otherwise she'll stop coming here altogether, which is not a route she wishes to take. It seems, too, that Castle doesn't think any the less of her for her petty jealousy. It might be easier if he did: as it is, his understanding makes her feel worse. Even if he's right. Maybe she should try to let that feeling wash through as well.

Beckett becomes aware that Castle has finished his coffee and repatriated the cup to the table and himself to the arm of her chair. She leans back into his arm, conveniently behind her, and looks at the remains of her cupful. It doesn't tell her anything useful, or that she didn't already know. She empties it, and Castle removes it from her before she has a chance to move. She tips her head back to throw him a questioning glance.

"I don't want you to move," he says firmly. "I like you here." He smiles wickedly. "Or possibly here," and he slides in below her and she ends up neatly in his lap. "There. Much more convenient."

Her brows quirk.

"For correctly delivered hugs – of which, Detective Beckett, you are currently much in need," he says with intentional pomposity, and demonstrates the correct method of hugging. Beckett relaxes into it and takes comfort from the warmth and Castle's brand of humour. A few moments pass by, in peaceable quiet, as she tries to accept that sniffling pathetically when seeing Castle and his daughter together, behaving as a family does, is not an indication that she is a jealous bitch. At least, not if she doesn't act on it. She'll be fine, as long as she leaves her gun at home. Her lips bend briefly upward, as she recognises her normal sardonic humour and some self-deprecation poking through her earlier misery.

Castle notices the uptick in her mood almost immediately, and while he can stand a considerable amount of time spent cuddling any flavour of Beckett, he'd still prefer her to be happy and therefore… amusable. He has some thoughts on amusement, when she's in a mood to hear them. He plays gently with a wisp of hair: not quite seductive, not quite innocent. Objection is conspicuous by its absence. He essays a tiny pattern at the root of the wisp, by her ear, and waits. Still no objections. In fact, there's a very minimal nestling-in move and a small press into his fingertips. He couldn't truthfully describe it as participation, still less enthusiastic, but it's certainly not rejection. He lapses into a slightly dreamy state, content to be quiet, peaceful, and undemanding.

Beckett is likewise content to be quiet, peaceful and undemanding until the last traces of pathetic, petty jealousy are burnt off. _For now_, she thinks bitterly, under no illusion that she won't be fighting it off – _no, that's the problem, Kate, fighting: let it pass through_ – letting it drain away again, the next time. Still, for now it's gone. She tucks her head into the juncture of Castle's neck and shoulder and breathes in the faint, familiar scent. Shortly, she wriggles to be more comfortable, which has the unplanned but pleasant effect of Castle adjusting his arms to hold her a little more tightly. The tiny patterns he's been outlining on her skin become a little more forceful, a little less innocent. She presses her closed lips into his neck.

"Thought you might be asleep," Castle smiles lazily.

"No," answers Beckett, and kisses his neck again to prove it. "Still awake."

"Good," he murmurs, seduction starting to spill down his speech, "because if you're awake this won't be wasted." And he turns her face up and plants a kiss firmly on her full mouth. She opens under it and responds to his gentle investigation in kind.

"No, not wasted." He kisses her again, the previous reconnaissance now the platform for invasion, and this time he's strong, searching and sure. Beckett's hand comes around his neck to hold him on to her mouth and launches a raid of her own. Castle trails a finger over her cheek, her jaw, down over her throat and into the shallow vee of her soft button-down; where it stops, tracing delicate outlines on her smooth, ivory skin.

Beckett draws in a breath, and suddenly the air is charged; heat and seduction rising to swirl around them: the kiss becomes hard, demanding and possessive; hands searching out fastenings and parting them to touch beneath and skim the skin revealed; shirts pulled open and hands left free to roam and play, stroke and roll and tease; until Castle ducks his head and drops Beckett back to give himself access to the arc of her neck; nibbles downward to tease along the edge of lace on her bra, employs his mouth to dampen and roll and flick till she breathes harder; hands locked in his hair. The hand on her knee slides inexorably upward, fingers pressing inward, seeking her surrender. She brings a hand of her own down from hair to shoulder and further, wilfully stoking his desire and her own – and all at once it hits the point of no return.

Castle stops playing with Beckett's breasts through the simple bra, stands in one powerful movement and removes them both to his bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him without looking and depositing Beckett right where she belongs, on her back in his bed. He looks down at her for a moment, heat in his eyes and desire in every line of his body, and then falls over her to pin her across the sheets with the force in his kiss.

Not that she's objecting. She doesn't want soft, tentative, or careful, reminding her that she's still broken, unhealed. She wants hot, hard and fast; possession not protection: the _I-can't-resist-you_ desperation that's the best way possible to convince her that despite her misery and envy and inability to deal with her own tragedy on her own, he still wants her just as fiercely and totally as he did two months ago; just as much as when he talked about the tango down the cell phone - perhaps as much as she had thought he had in that hot, hard, possessive kiss when he'd first asked her to prom all those years ago.

Perhaps as much as she wants him.

She shoves his shirt off his shoulders, digs into smooth skin over hard muscle and grips him close to her, so that he won't move away. Frantic plundering kisses blend into hard, deep, mutual possessiveness; hands loosen slightly to explore and own, search and seize. He rises from her mouth only to nip sharply on her ear, relieve the sting by pressing on the nerve there which makes her arch into him.

When he moves further down; small bites and soothing tongue, where any mark he leaves won't be seen, shifting and dampening the cotton and lace of her bra and dragging it over sensitive nipples and swelling, heated mounds, she gasps softly and sweeps an elegant hand downward to undo belt, button and zipper and release him to her touch, firm strokes over the weight that's hard against her hand till he exhales hard in his turn and stops exploring in favour of stripping her dress pants with one swift, commanding tug, leaving her under his heated gaze in plain white underwear, through which the erect points of her nipples and the gathering moisture between her legs are clearly visible.

Castle doesn't pause to admire; simply allows Beckett to push him back down flat and then flexes his hips so that his pants are removed too. Bra, boxers and panties disappear in a pyrolytic flash of lust and Beckett pulls Castle full over her as he pauses for an instant and then thrusts home once hard to take, fill and possess her, unmistakably proving his own want, need and desire. She curves to meet his raw rhythm and matches it; and then there's only heat and motion and blazing culmination.

There doesn't seem to be much that needs to be said, for a few moments. Castle's rolled over and wrapped Beckett in to him, idly running long strokes from shoulder to thigh and back again; not yet attempting to arouse her. She's close-cuddled in, and for now that's all he needs to know, and all he needs to have.

Beckett lies sated against Castle, safe, still and warmed through. Contentment seeps through her, and under that a different, deeper feeling. She pursues it, but doesn't quite catch it before she finds that the smooth slow movements over her are inclining her to draw patterns of her own, over those conveniently placed pectorals and the currently flat nipples thereon. So she does, gently; provoking Castle's strokes to turn sensual, to slip lower and tease. She flicks her tongue over his chest where a moment ago she'd touched and hears his gasp with satisfaction. Her wicked hand glides down his body and comes to rest right where she intended it to: wrapped around him. It seems that he likes that. She grips and slides. He _definitely_ likes that. She likes what he's doing, too. A lot.

She moves seductively against the hard press of fingertips – and finds herself rolled, Castle looming above her and smiling down in a very predatory fashion. He doesn't speak. In one swift motion he detaches her naughty hand and then simultaneously spreads her open and slithers down her body to lay a kiss on her hip, then her thigh, and finally stop, watching her watching him.

Looking into his dark, intense eyes, passion and heat and lust and something that she thinks she might recognise but can't think about yet, matched, she hopes, in her own hot hazel gaze, everything's right in this moment: everything else can wait.

And then he puts his mouth on her and everything else simply stops. She'd never, previously, been particularly fond of this: not disliking it, simply not bothered, preferring the feel of weight and muscle pressing into her and being filled; but with Castle it seems that oral is a very different matter. The sensation of the soft lips and flickering tongue, the delicate almost-scrape of teeth, just on the right side of pleasure, the way in which he touches every individual nerve: all of it winds her higher and higher and leaves her writhing and squirming, burying her face in the pillow so that the noise she's making isn't audible further than the bed; not sure if she's moving to escape the intensity or to increase it; and finally, frantically gasping his name on a long string of desperation and pleading: _yes Castle more now please Castle_ and release.

Castle slides back up beside Beckett and holds her limp body satisfactorily close. He's still a little amazed that she's so surprised by good oral, but he's not complaining about her reaction to him at all. Oh no. He's quite happy to show her what he can do to her, with her and for her, as often as possible. Just as long as he can _also_ stand with her the rest of the time, without her hiding from him; just as long as she realises that when she can't stand on her own he'll hold her up. There will be times when he needs her to hold him up, too; but he knows she's strong enough for that. After all, despite her pain, she'd taken some care to ensure he was reassured that it wasn't his fault. Even when it might have been, and even when it was. It occurs to him that she's tried to protect him – oh. Tried to protect him from her. Oh. Ugh. That is _definitely_ not required.

He manoeuvres Beckett into a more comfortable alignment, spooned into him, and envelops her, tugging the coverlet over them so that she'll be warm. A little time later it becomes apparent that she's asleep, which is a tiny bit disappointing in one way, but considerably more encouraging in most others. If she's back to snuggling close to him, and more, accepting that she can, then this is moving firmly in the right direction.

The only problem is, it dawns on him, that however much he wants to keep her here, it's Sunday, she's undoubtedly at work tomorrow (when is she _not_ working, even now when she's being forced only to work her rostered hours?) and that means that at some point she will need to – possibly, now, not _want_ to – go home. If nothing else, she doesn't have a change of clothes here. Everything else would be manageable, and his shower is big enough for two, he thinks errantly, swiftly followed by _she should keep some clothes here_. For emergencies, of course. But he'll just let her sleep a little longer. It's good for her. Nothing to do with his gut-wrenching need to keep her close in case she slips away from him again. Nothing at all to do with that. He cuddles her closer and, despite the early hour and his best intentions, slips into satiated, satisfied sleep himself.

He jerks into wakefulness sometime in the early hours of the morning, peers blearily at the clock and finds it's just shy of five a.m. There's a comfortingly cosy bundle of Beckett still next to him, curled up around a pillow with her back pressed into him and sound asleep. He enjoys the moment, for only a moment until he remembers that he'd meant to ask her if she needed to go home, and now it's almost five a.m. and she definitely will need to go, which means he has to wake her, which means that not only will he have to stop cuddling her, which is just _unfair_, but he may also run a significant risk of injury.

He bites the bullet, so to speak, and shakes Beckett's shoulder gently. Her eyes spring open: none of the slow wakening of yesterday. Her voice, however, sleep-fuddled and devoid of thought, doesn't match her open eyes.

"Wha…?"

"You fell asleep here. So did I," he adds hastily. "I meant to wake you last night so you could go home if you wanted but I just woke up now."

"What time's it?" she slurs.

"Five."

"Ugh." She closes her eyes. "I don't need to get up for an hour yet."

"You have no clean clothes." Her eyes peel open again.

"Wha…?"

"This is my loft, not your apartment. You have no clothes here. It's fine by me if you don't wear any," he smirks, "but it might look a little odd when you're at work." She growls crossly, but her eyes stay open. After a second, she stretches. It's very nice to watch.

It's less nice to watch when she struggles to sitting and then out of the bed, returning a short time later dressed in yesterday's clothes. Castle's achieved a robe, but intends to be back visiting Morpheus the instant after he's seen Beckett out the door.

"I've got to get home," she says, unnecessarily. Castle stands up and hugs her.

"I know. See you later?"

"Yes," she smiles. "See you at the precinct." And she kisses him and is rapidly gone. Castle is equally rapidly asleep again, but not before his fertile mind has reminded him of his grand plan. He's smiling happily as his eyes drop shut.

* * *

_Thank you to all readers, reviewers and those who follow and favourite, guest or logged in. I am very grateful._


	43. Chapter 43

**Chapter 43: We can do the tango just for two**

Every day Castle shows up in the precinct. Every evening he invites Beckett round. By the end of the week she comes for dinner, and manages to get through it without a noticeable qualm, though she's disturbingly quiet for a while afterwards. Every evening they slip from coffee or wine to kisses and bed; but it's the working week, and no matter how much they want to stay together, eventually she has to go. She refuses to spend the entire weekend with him, admitting to needing some time to think about her parents, alone, but consents to show up late on Saturday night, when she only wants to curl into him and receive warmth and comfort. He cuddles her in, pets her while she doesn't speak, and rejoices very privately that she's accepting that she needs him. It's no different the following week, though courtesy of Alexis's extensive social life during the summer, and then her departure to camp, Castle comes round to Beckett's instead of eating alone.

When he's not with Beckett, though, he's refining his plan. He's made a couple of calls, and everything is neatly in place for a couple of Saturdays hence. Alexis will still be at summer camp, his mother will be leaving for a role in Lafayette, Indiana that morning. (Good at geography or not, he'd had to look it up. Where?) His loft will be empty. Well, it'll be empty of his family. With only a very small amount of luck, involving Beckett not being called to a murder or run over by a truck, it will be occupied – eventually – by the two of them.

He thinks for a moment. Specifically, he thinks about Roy Montgomery, and Roy's obvious concern about Beckett, even now. He's picked on Castle a couple of times, when she's out the way, and although he's – perfectly truthfully – been able to say that she's pretty much okay, Roy hasn't approved any overtime that isn't directly related to a case, and he's been very blatantly watching when Beckett starts and ends her day. Hmmm. Castle scents an opportunity for a little gentle blackmail.

As soon as Beckett tells him that she's going to the gym for some light sparring to clear her head, Castle takes the chance afforded despite his strong wish to follow her and simply admire the flex and pull of her muscles and now less-skeletal body. She's been eating better and, though still frighteningly slender, is no longer quite so painfully thin.

"Roy?"

"Yes?"

"You got a moment?"

"Sure."

Castle enters and closes the office door behind him.

"Roy, can you ensure that Beckett's not on call, Saturday and Sunday two weeks from now?"

Montgomery raises an interested and enquiring eyebrow. "Now why'd you want that, Castle?"

Castle squirms internally, and takes some pains not to let it show. This bears an unpleasant resemblance to being examined by a girl's father when he'd turned up for a date.

"I wanna take her out somewhere. Take her mind off her dad." Montgomery's eyebrow waggles a fraction, and he acquires an oddly paternal smile. He almost looks as if he believes Castle. Almost.

"And you don't want it ruined." That's not a question. "Why should I? Beckett's got to do her share of weekend shifts and on-call rotas."

"Sure she does. She'll kill you if she doesn't get to, anyway. But you can make sure she's off-shift and not on call for one weekend."

"Why should I?"

"Because you want her back on top form. Oh – and because if you don't I'll tell her that you set me to watch her when she comes back down from the gym."

Montgomery winces. He's pretty sure that Beckett won't be happy if she knows that. He's pretty sure she doesn't, on the grounds that superior officer or not she'd have made her displeasure plain. With perfect discipline, respectfulness and propriety, of course. The thought makes him cringe. Beckett's ability to be bitingly furious while perfectly respectful is legendary. The wounds it might leave are equally legendary, and the worst thing is that she never says a single word or makes a gesture that is anything but wholly proper. It's very hard to rate someone for insubordination when they aren't being insubordinate. Especially when you're the one in the wrong.

Montgomery grimaces. "Okay. I'll make sure the shift pattern works." Castle smiles happily at him.

"Thanks, Roy. I won't tell Beckett about your little spy request." It's not a lie. He will not – future tense. Because he already has – past tense. He bounces out, perfectly content.

Montgomery regards Castle's retreating back with some amusement. _Take her mind off her dad_? Does Castle think he's an idiot? He's perfectly well aware that Beckett and Castle are in a serious relationship. It's obvious by the way they _don't_ touch each other, don't look lovingly into each other's eyes – and absolutely never leave at the same time, ever. They couldn't be making it clearer if they announced it to the whole bullpen. Though Ryan and Esposito seem to have missed it. He smiles very smugly to himself. Allowing Castle into the precinct months ago had _definitely_ been his best idea yet. He is, however, just a little upset that he didn't ever get the soap opera. Still, there's always ABC.

* * *

Beckett wakes up on Saturday morning and contemplates the day ahead with some discomfort. She's had the nagging feeling for a few days now that she ought to go through her dad's possessions, but she's been at work, and then she's been with Castle. However, though she's on call, she has finally understood that she needs to do this.

She thinks about calling Castle to go with her, if he has time. But then she rejects that idea. It's something she needs to do by herself. She needs to remember each object, choose any – if there are any – that she wants to have in her own place, and replace the rest, alone. If Castle's there, she'll feel she has to explain and talk, and she wants to do this in quiet reverence for the life that her father used to have; that he lost in an alleyway when he lost her mother. Castle won't ask her to talk, but… she doesn't want the distraction.

The storage facility is a half-hour walk away. She could drive, but the walk will give her time to clear her head, so she tells herself. She's in no hurry to do this, but the nagging need to do it drives her. Still, she pauses to have a coffee in one of the many Manhattan coffee-selling establishments, and doesn't speed her drinking. When the cup is done, however, she has to move along and face her past.

It isn't easy. It's not only her father's possessions which are there, there are also many items from their family home. She's glad she brought plenty of tissues: because she needs them all. Every object has a memory, some good, some bad, some happy, some sad. She finds a box of her school reports and certificates for childhood achievements, and can't continue for many minutes while she gathers herself again.

Finally, red-eyed and headachy, she's finished. She's found a few items – small ornaments, a second set of china elephants, one or two pictures – that she does want. She won't keep the majority of the furniture, though there are some small teak occasional tables and her mother's beautiful walnut escritoire that she will rearrange her apartment to accommodate. The rest will go: she has no need for another couch, or armchair, or bed, and whilst storage has been useful, this much storage is not cheap, even if she can easily afford it. If she deals with the furniture, the other items can be brought into a much, much smaller unit while she considers what to do with them. She nods her head firmly to herself, heedless of her headache. She'll keep the mementoes that she isn't taking now, and the small items of furniture that she does want. And over the next week or two, she'll arrange for the furniture to be auctioned and the storage space reduced. Yes.

She makes it all the way home with the small objets d'art, arranges them on the table and stares at them, utterly miserable, again. It's only just after lunchtime. She's not hungry, has a large glass of water to try to relieve the headache, adds two Tylenol to the mix, and stares at the elephants some more: beautifully decorated porcelain. Tears trickle down her cheek. These elephants had sat on the mantelpiece all her life: the ones in the precinct she had taken from the cabin, before her father could hide them or break them. She'd never expected to see these ones again: she had expected that they'd been lost or broken.

She looks at them standing on her coffee table, chokes back a flood of tears and exits her apartment at near light-speed. There's only one place she wants and needs to be, to deal with this. He'd said _anything you need_. Now she'll find out if he meant it. Ten minutes later she's knocking at Castle's door, completely oblivious to whether he'll even be there. It's not until a moment before the door swings open, too late to flee for home, that she realises that she didn't even have the courtesy to text or call first.

"I just needed you," she sobs as she steps inside. "I just need you."

The smile falls off Castle's face the minute he sees Beckett. He'd never wanted to see that depth of utter misery in her face again, after the funeral. And just as he had after the funeral, he takes the necessary stride to catch her and hold her till the tears run dry. He can't make out a word from the tears – though one of them sounds like _elephants_, which makes no sense at all – but then he doesn't have to. She's come here – finally, again – because he gives her comfort. She hasn't done that for two months. So it really doesn't matter yet why she's so upset, so suddenly, just when he'd thought that she was getting through it, because if he takes her to sit down and cossets her he thinks that eventually she might even tell him what's wrong.

_Talk or don't talk, Beckett, as long as you stop hiding_.

Well, she's certainly not hiding now.

"I went through everything," she finally says, miserable exhaustion in every syllable. "Took some pieces home to keep. Mom's elephants…" she dissolves again. That explains the elephants, he supposes. And the upset. He strokes her back comfortingly, and cradles her head to him. Her arm sneaks up round his neck, and she stays quiet and still for a long time, there in his arms.

She consents to stay for the afternoon, and then for dinner, and then the rest of the night: wanting only to be held and petted, keeping up a brave face in front of Martha, but intermittently breaking down thereafter, finally falling into strung-out sleep in Castle's bed. Castle, prepared for almost anything from wild, frantic lovemaking (it isn't now, if it ever was, sex) to this complete exhaustion, takes up the book he'd left on his nightstand and reads, not entirely peaceably, until he himself is ready to sleep, much later.

In the morning she wakes late, but this time Castle's still there with her: kisses her gently and refuses to listen to any apology for weeping all over him. When she tries again he kisses her a lot harder, and then threatens her with deprival of coffee if she carries on. It's the worst thing he can think of. She stops arguing, though her glare would drill through rock. After a short pause he reckons he can risk kissing her again without shortly becoming dead or injured, and proves to be perfectly correct about both the kisses and the apparently inevitable, explosive result.

* * *

Another two weeks, and a nasty case of cosmetic surgery and Mob-related murder later – surgery _where_? Ugh – and Beckett seems to be pretty much restored. How much of that is her own strength of personality and how much that she now knows that Castle's there for her, an arm if she needs it, doesn't need analysed. Her snark and snap is all back full-force, and if sparkle is still a little lacking, well, as the song goes, it's getting better all the time.

Castle thinks with satisfaction that he's timed his plan perfectly. On the Friday night, when Beckett comes for dinner for the first time in days (courtesy of that most annoying case: really, doesn't the universe know when to butt out?) and after his mother has removed herself to finish her packing with a roll of her eyes that's almost worthy of Beckett herself, he begins.

"Beckett, I've got a surprise for you." He bounces happily. Beckett looks at him very suspiciously.

"Hmm?" she says interrogatively.

"You'll like it. You've already agreed you'd like it." The suspicious look turns to full on bad-guy pinning glare. He's completely impervious, for once, wholly confident that this will work out just fine. He smiles even more happily. "In fact, you agreed to do it." There's a very irritated noise.

"_What_ did I agree to like, or do? I don't remember agreeing to anything."

"You did." He stops, and his face changes from bouncy happiness to a very male smile of pure desire. "You agreed to come dancing with me. So tomorrow I've arranged for us to go for dinner and then dancing." Her face is entirely blank. He stutters for a second. "If you want to, that is?" There's a tiny pause.

And then her face breaks into a wide smile. "Yes. Yes. Let's go dancing, Castle. See if you're as good as you said you were."

"Of course I am. Are you as good as you implied you were?" It's not entirely clear that he's talking about dancing. "I'll pick you up at eight. You'll need to wear your tango dress." His face is entirely predatory, now; Beckett's eyes are darkly dilated. When she bites down on her lip there's only one response Castle is capable of making, and he captures her mouth and makes it. Shortly thereafter he captures the rest of her only-too-willing body.

* * *

Beckett forces herself to spend a proportion of Saturday on her chores and on dealing with the final arrangements of sending unwanted furniture to the auction house and all the rest of her items into a much smaller storage unit. That done, and a considerable proportion of the afternoon still to pass, she delves into the darker recesses of her closet and retrieves her ballroom dance dress and heels. She dusts the dress off, and smiles sharply at it as she hangs it in the bathroom to let any creases drop out in the steam of the shower she'll have later.

Sitting with a coffee and a book to which she isn't paying any attention, she realises that, despite dealing with another part of her father's affairs, she's not close to tears, or drowned in misery. She's regretful, but there's finally a little calm space between her and her loss. It's taken her almost three months to get here, but she's nearly healed. There will always be a note of sadness when she thinks of her father, or of her mother, but she doesn't need to bury it. Experience, accept, pass through. And when it's too much, she has someone to lean on, who has been consistently, constantly there. Out of tragedy, redemption. At last, she's realised that she can be strong enough to show weakness.

She's strong enough to say that she's in love.

She smiles happily into her coffee, and takes up her book. They'll go dancing, and everything will be right. Warmth spreads through her, and suddenly she wants to be outside, in the sunshine. She drains her cup in one go, changes into her running kit, and in less than five minutes is joyfully pounding the pavement to an upbeat playlist. She doesn't run too far – no point in being exhausted when she's going dancing tonight – but she's _happy_, and it lightens her feet and loosens her muscles.

She prepares carefully for her evening out. Shower, moisturiser, a small splash of a sultry, musky perfume on the pulse point of her cleavage; smoothed back hair gleaming; make-up a fraction heavier, a fraction darker and more sensual: black mascara and black smudged eyeliner; quite different from any style he's ever seen on her, even at the fundraiser. The tango, after all, is a wholly erotic dance. Her legs are silky-smooth and pristine, and so she leaves her pantyhose in the drawer. Minimalist crimson high cut silk panties, of a kind she hasn't bothered with in years, but which are absolutely appropriate for tonight. No bra: the dress is backless and low cut, light support built in, and her sleek body doesn't need anything more. She slides the dress on, places a black silk wrap to the side with a small black silk evening purse beside it, and waits for eight o'clock, and Castle.

He doesn't have to clean his car, this time, but he's still ten minutes early, sitting in the luxurious Mercedes from the service and trying not to bite his nails with nervousness. He's not wearing a tux, this time, but black formal pants and jacket, with a black open-necked shirt. It's not the same. It's really not going to be the same. But then he looks down at the corsage beside him and another wave of nerves cramps his stomach. It's the same as he'd got her then: delicate white gypsophila around a perfect, part unfurled white rose, thorns removed, on a white ribbon. He doesn't expect her to wear it – in fact, she shouldn't – but he hopes with all his heart that she'll like it, and understand the subtext.

This is the evening they should have had: the prom they never had. This time, it's going to be right. This time she won't be in ripped, dirty jeans and a sloppy t-shirt instead of a red dress. She'll be groomed and made up and ready to go dancing and she'll be happy to see him instead of furiously contemptuous. It won't be the same. The only thing that will be the same is how he feels about her.

Except that's not the same either. Then, he was still a boy. Now he loves her as an adult does: more than her mind, more than her body. He loves whether she needs him or not, with all the strength of his soul. He gathers up the corsage with all his courage and his love, and walks to her door.

She's gorgeous. She's beautiful. She's wearing a red velvet dress that should have her arrested for stopping the world spinning round the sun, that's cut diagonally – but she didn't mention that it's an inch short of indecency – and perfect for dancing. She's poised and perfect and glorious and he can see everything he ever wanted in her face. _This is not the same_. He holds out the corsage.

"I brought you these…" He falters very slightly as he sees recognition dawn in her bright eyes. "Kate…I'd love you to be my date for prom tonight?" She reaches out and takes his hand, curls her other round his neck and kisses him with all the love in her.

"I'd love to, Rick."

_**Fin.**_

* * *

_This story is now done._

_Thank you all. If I acknowledge you individually the list will be longer than this story. I have appreciated and, where possible, answered all of your thoughts and comments. _


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